not show it others; and thus we have examined the two places of Scripture, all that I remember our author brings to prove "Adam's sovereignty," that "supremacy," which, he says, "it was God's ordinance should be unlimited in Adam, and as large as all the acts of his will" (O., 254), viz.Gen. i. 28, and Gen. iii. 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.

CHAPTER VI.

Of Adam's Title to Sovereignty by Fatherhood.

50. THERE is one thing more, and then I think I have given you all that our author brings for proof of Adam's 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. 15). 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 it 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_in liberos." And, indeed, the act of begetting 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 author, always very clear in the point, assures us it 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 it is but an ill way of pleading for absolute monarchy, and Sir Robert's bare sayings will scarce establish it; one slave's 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 am 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 doctrine who would have monarchy to be jure Divino, may have all fair play, let us hear what reasons others give for it, since our author 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. First, I answer

that every one who gives another anything, has not always thereby a right to take it away again; but, secondly, they who say the father gives life to his children are so dazzled with the thoughts of monarchy that they do not, as they ought, remember God who is the "author and giver of life;" it 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 inquiries; 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 man's body, and in that operation wherein life consists in the whole; and doth the rude ploughman 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 man say 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 proportioned 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 breathe in the breath of life. If any one thinks himself an artist at this, let him number up the parts of his child's 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 xciv. 9). See these men's vanities. The structure of one part is sufficient to convince us of an allwise Contriver, and he has so visible a claim to us as his workmanship that one of the ordinary appellations of God in Scripture

is "God our maker and the Lord our maker." And therefore, though our author, 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, it is not so slight a piece of workmanship that it can be imagined they could make them without designing it. What father of a thousand, when he begets a child, thinks farther than 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 than Deucalion and his wife in the fable did towards the making of mankind by throwing pebbles 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 joint dominion, with the mother, over them; for nobody 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 fashioned, and from her it receives the materials and principles of its constitution; and it is hard to imagine the rational soul should presently inhabit the yet unformed embryo, as soon as the father has done his part in the act of generation, that if it must be supposed to derive anything from the parents it must certainly owe most to the mother. But, be that as it will, the mother cannot be denied an equal sha begetting of the child, and so the absolute autho father will not arise from hence; our autho another mind; for he says, "We know

Creation, gave the sovereignty to the

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 author to tell us his own fancies 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 allege the practice of mankind for "exposing or selling" their children as a proof of their power over them, are, with Sir Robert, happy arguers, and cannot but recommend their opinion by founding it on the most shameful action and most unnatural murder human nature is capable of. The dens of lions and nurseries of wolves know no such cruelty as this. These savage inhabitants of the desert obey God and Nature in being tender and careful of their offspring. 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 privilege of man alone to act more contrary to Nature than 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 revealed 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 overrules the constitution of their particular Thus we see, when their young stand in need of it, the timorous come valiant, the fierce and savage, kind, and the ravenous, tender and liberal.

natures.

57. But if the examples of what hath been done be the