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under the natural dominion of his eldest brother, though he did not beget him.

§. 75. If then the private dominion of Adam, i. e. his property in the creatures, descended at his death all entirely to his eldest son, his heir; (for, if it did not, there is presently an end of all sir Robert's monarchy) and his natural dominion, the dominion a father has over his children by begetting them, belonged, immediately upon Adam's decease, equally to all his sons who had children, by the same title their father had it, the sove reignty founded upon property, and the sovereignty founded upon fatherhood, come to be divided; since Cain, as heir, had that of property alone; Seth, and the other sons, that of fatherhood equally with him. This is the best can be made of our author's doctrine, and of the two titles of sovereignty he sets up in Adam; one of them will either signify nothing; or, if they both must stand, they can serve only to confound the rights of princes, and disorder government in his posterity: for by building upon two titles to dominion, which cannot descend together, and which he allows may be separated, (for he yields that "Adam's children had their

distinct territories by right of private dominion, O. 210, p. 40.) he makes it perpetually a doubt upon his principles where the sovereignty is, or to whom we owe our obedience; since fatherhood and property are distinct tities, and began presently upon Adam's death to be in distinct persons. And which then was to give way to the other?

§. 76. Let us take the account of it, as he himself gives it ns. He tells us out of Grotius, that "Adam's children by donation, assignation, or some kind of "cession before he was dead, had their distinct territo"ries by right of private dominion; Abel had his "flocks, and pastures for them: Cain had his fields for

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corn, and the land of Nod, where he built him a city," O. 210. Here it is obvious to demand, which of these two after Adam's death was sovereign? Cain, says our author, p. 19. By what title?" As heir; for heirs to progenitors, who were natural parents

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"their people, are not only lords of their own children, but also of their brethren," says our author, p. 19. What was Cain heir to? Not the entire possessions, not all that which Adam had private dominion in; for our author allows that Abel, by a title derived from his father, "had his distinct territory for pasture by right of private dominion." What then Abel had by private dominion, was exempt from Cain's dominion: for he could not have private dominion over that which was under the private dominion of another; and therefore his sovereignty over his brother is gone with this private dominion, and so there are presently two sovereigns, and his imaginary title of fatherhood is out of doors, and Cain is no prince over his brother: or else, if Cain retain his sovereignty over Abel, notwithstanding his private dominion, it will follow, that the "first grounds and principles of government" have nothing to do with property, whatever our author says to the contrary. It is true, Abel did not outlive his father Adam; but that makes nothing to the argument, which will hold good against sir Robert in Abel's issue, or in Seth, or any of the posterity of Adam, not descended from Cain.

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§. 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 fa

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ther," I ask then, in which of the three we shall find the establishment of regal power" after Noah's death? If in all three, as our author there seems to say, then it will follow, that regal power is founded in perty 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 "Noah's division of the "world by lot to his sons, or his ten years sailing about "the Mediterranean to appoint each son his part, which our author 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 Japhet 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 inconveniencies which he musters up against the "power "of the people," O. 158. which I shall set down in his own words, only changing property for people: "All power on earth is either derived or usurped 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 subordi

nation of one to the other, they would be in perpe"tual strife which should be supreme, for two supremes "cannot agree: if the fatherly power be supreme, then "the power grounded on private dominion must be

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subordinate, and depend on it; and if the power "grounded on property be supreme, 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 nature." 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 persons; and it is plain, by his own confession, presently separated as soon both as Adam's and Noah's death made way for succession: though our author 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 sovereignty of Adam to princes that were to reign after him..

CHAPTER

CHAPTER VIII.

Of the conveyance of Adam's sovereign monarchical

§. 78.

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power.

IR Robert having not been very happy in any proof 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 that first monarch. The ways he has assigned, as they lie scattered 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 grants, or succession. Again he says, "All kings either are, or are to be reputed, the next "heirs to those first prgenitors, 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, considered by itself, 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. In other places he tells us, O. 155. "All

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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 heirs of such fathers, or usurpers of the right of "such fathers," O. 253. And here he makes inherit-* ance or usurpation the only way whereby kings come by this original power: but yet he tells us, "this faVOL. V.

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therly empire, as it was of itself hereditary, so it was alienable by patent, and seizable by an usurper," O. 190. So then here inheritance, grant, or usurpation, will convey it. And last of all, which is most admirable, he tells us, p. 100. "It skills not which way "kings come by their power, whether by election, do

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nation, succession, or by any other means; for it is "still the manner of the government by supreme 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 Adam's 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 supreme power, and it matters not by what means "he came by it.'

§. 79. By this notable way our author may make Oliver as properly king, as any one else he could think of: and had he had the happiness to live under Massa"neillo's government, he could not by this his own rule have forborn to have done homage to him, with

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king live for ever," since the manner of his government by supreme power made him properly king, who was but the day before properly a fisherman. And if don Quixote had taught his squire to govern with su preme authority, our author no doubt could have made a most loyal subject in Sancho Pancha's island: he must needs 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 told the world, that he was "properly a king, whose manner of

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government was by supreme power, by what means soever he obtained it;" which in plain English is to say, that regal and supreme 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 usurper,

§. 80. This

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