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 author, 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 handsomely together in good words and a plausible style, are apt to pass for strong reason and good sense till they come to be looked into with attention.

CHAPTER IV.

Of Adam's Title to Sovereignty by Donation (Gen. i. 28).

21. HAVING at last got through the foregoing passage, where we have been so long detained, 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 Adam's sovereignty. Our author tells us, in the words of Mr. Selden, that "Adam, by donation from God (Gen. i. 28), was made the general lord of all things, not without such a private dominion to himself as without his grant did exclude his children. This determination of Mr. Selden," says our author, "is consonant to the history of the Bible and natural reason" (O., 210). And in his preface to his "Observations on Aristotle" 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 anything 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 shows the title comes from fatherhood."

22. Before I examine this argument and the text on which it is founded, it is necessary to desire the reader to observe that our author, according to his usual method, begins in one sense and concludes in another. He begins here with "Adam's propriety or private dominion by donation," and his conclusion is-" which shows 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 and 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" (Gen. i. 28), from whence our author 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 author calls it, "private dominion," over the earth and all inferior or irrational creatures, and so consequently that he was thereby monarch; or, secondly, that it gave him rule and dominion over all earthly creatures whatsoever, and thereby over his children, and so he was inonarch; 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 Adam's " monarchy." But our author 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 author 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, distinct speaking not serving everywhere to his purpose, you must not expect it in him as in Mr. Selden, or other such writers.

24. In opposition, therefore, to our author's doctrine, that "Adam was monarch of the whole world," founded on this place, I shall show :

Firstly, that by this grant (Gen. i. 28) God gave no immediate power to Adam over men, over his children, over those of his own species, and so he was not made ruler or "monarch" by this charter.

Secondly, that by this grant God gave him not "private dominion" over the inferior creatures, but right in common with all mankind, so neither was he "monarch” upon the account of the property here given him.

25. Firstly, that this donation (Gen. i. 28) gave Adam no power over men, will appear if we consider the words of it. For since all positive grants convey no more than the express words they are made in will carry, let us see which of them here will comprehend mankind or Adam's posterity; and those I imagine, if any, must be these"every living thing that moveth;" the words in the Hebrew are non-i.e., bestiam reptantem, of which words the Scripture itself is the best interpreter. God having created the fishes and fowls the fifth day; the beginning of the sixth He creates the irrational inhabitants of the dry land, which (ver. 24) are described in these words: "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind; cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after his kind;" and (ver. 2): "And God made the beasts of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth on the earth after his kind." Here, in the creation of the brute inhabitants of the earth, he first speaks of them all under one general name of "living creatures," and then afterwards divides them into three ranks: 1. Cattle or such creatures as were or might be tame, and so be the private possession of particular men; 2. n'n, which (vers. 24 and 25) in our Bible is translated "beasts," and by the Septuagint, Onpía,

"wild beasts," and is the same word that here in our text (ver. 28), where we have this great charter to Adam, is translated "living thing," and is also the same word used (Gen. ix. 2) where this grant is renewed to Noah, and there likewise translated "beast;" 3. The third rank were the creeping animals, which (vers. 24 and 25) are comprised under the word no, the same that is used here (ver. 28), and is translated "moving," but in the former verses creeping," and by the Septuagint in all these places

éрTeтà, or reptiles, from whence it appears that the words, which we translate here in God's donation (ver. 28), "living creatures moving," are the same which, in the history of the creation (vers. 24 and 25), signify two ranks of terrestrial creatures-viz., wild beasts and reptiles, and are so understood by the Septuagint.

26. When God had made the irrational animals of the world, divided into three kinds, from the places of their habitation-viz., "fishes of the sea, fowls of the air," and living creatures of the earth, and these again into "cattle, wild beasts, and reptiles," He considers of making man, and the dominion he should have over the terrestrial world (ver. 26), and then He reckons up the inhabitants of these three kingdoms; but in the terrestrial leaves out the second rank П', or wild beasts; but here (ver. 28), where He actually executes this design and gives him this dominion the text mentions "the fishes of the sea, and fowls of the air," and the terrestrial creatures in the words that signify the wild beasts and reptiles, though translated "living thing that moveth," leaving out cattle. In both which places, though the word that signifies "wild beasts" be omitted in one, and that which signifies "cattle" in the other, yet since God certainly executed in one place what He declares he designed in the other, we cannot but understand the same in both places, and have here only an account how the terrestrial irrational animals, which were already created and reckoned up at their creation in three distinct ranks of "cattle," "wild beasts," and "reptiles," were here (ver 28) actually put under the dominion of man, as they were designed (O., 26.) Nor do these words contain in them the least appearance of any thing that can be wrested to signify God's giving one man dominion over another, Adam over his posterity.

27. And this further appears from Gen. ix. 2, where God, renewing this charter to Noah and his sons, He gives them dominion over "the fowls of the air," and "the fishes of the sea," and "the terrestrial creatures," expressed by 'n and, "wild beasts and reptiles," the same words that in the text before us (Gen. i. 28) are translated" every moving thing that moveth on the earth," which by no means can comprehend man, the grant being made to Noah and his sons, all the men then living, and not to one part of men over another, which is

רמש

yet more evident from the very next words (ver. 3), where God gives every up, "every moving thing," the very words used (chap. i. 28) to them for food. By all which it is plain that God's donation to Adam (chap. i. 28), and His designation (v. 26), and His grant again to Noah and his sons, refer to, and contain in them neither more or less than the works of the Creation, the fifth day, and the beginning of the sixth, as they are set down from ver. 20 to 26, inclusively of chap. i, and so comprehend all the species of irrational animals of the terraqueous globe, though all the words whereby they are expressed in the history of their creation are nowhere used in any of the following grants, but some of them omitted in one, and some in another; from whence I think it is past all doubt that man cannot be comprehended in this grant, nor any dominion over those of his own species be conveyed to Adam. All the terrestrial irrational creatures are enumerated at their creation (ver. 25), under the names, "beasts of the earth,” “cattle and creeping things;" but man being not then created, was not contained under any of those names, and therefore whether we understand the Hebrew words right or no, they cannot be supposed to comprehend man in the very same history, and the very next verses following, especially since that Hebrew word, which (if any) in this donation to Adam (chap. i. 28), must comprehend man, is so plainly used in contradistinction to him, as Gen. vi. 20, vii. 14, 21, 23, Gen. viii., 17, 19. And if God made all mankind slaves to Adam and his heirs, by giving Adam dominion over every living thing that moveth on the earth (chap. i. 28), as our author would have it, me thinks Sir Robert should 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 (chap. ix. 2), to eat every living thing that moveth, as He did to Adam to have dominion over them, the Hebrew words in both places 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 author in his comment on this place as the learned and judicious Ainsworth calls it-in Psalm viii. finds here no such charter of monarchical power.

His words