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in Seth, or any 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. 15), "had the whole world divided amongst them by their father." I ask, then, in which of the three shall we 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 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 "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. 20) 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 inconveniences which he musters up against the "power of the people" (()., 158) and 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 subordination of one to the other, they would be in perpetual 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 rubordinate 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." 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 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 VIII.

Of the Conveyance of Adam's Sovereign Monarchical Power.

78. SIR 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 him. 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 anything but by his grant or permission, or by succession from him." Here he makes two ways of conveyance of anything 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 progenitors who were at first the natural parents of the whole people" (p. 23). "There cannot be any multitude of men whatsoever but that in it, considered by itself,

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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 "usurpation" the only ways whereby kings come by this original power, but yet he tells us "this fatherly 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. 54), "It skills 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 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 Massanelio's government, he could not by this his own rule have forborne to have done homage to him with "O 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 supreme authority, our author, 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 told the world

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that he was 66 properly a king whose manner of 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." So. This is so strange a doctrine, that the surprise of it hath made me pass by, without their due reflection, the contradictions he runs into by making sometimes "inheritance" alone, sometimes only "grant" or inheritance," sometimes only "inheritance" or "usurpation," sometimes all these three, and, at last, "election" or any other means" added to them, the ways whereby Adam's royal "authority," that is, his right to supreme rule, could be conveyed down to future kings and governors, so as to give them a title to the obedience and subjection of the people; but these contradictions lie so open, that the very reading of our author's own words will discover them to any ordinary understanding, and though what I have quoted out of him, with abundance more of the same strain and coherence which might be found in him, might well excuse me from any further trouble in this argument, yet having proposed to myself to examine the main parts of his doctrine, I shall a little more particularly consider how "inheritance," grant," "usurpation," or "election" can any way make out government in the world upon his principles or derive any lawful title to any one's obedience from this regal authority of Adam, had it been never so well proved that he had been absolute monarch and lord of the whole world.

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CHAPTER IX.

Of Monarchy by Inheritance from Adam.

81. THOUGH it be never so plain that there ought to be government in the world; nay, should all men be of our author's mind that Divine appointment had ordained it to be "monarchical," yet, since men cannot obey any thing that cannot command, and ideas of government in the fancy, though never so perfect, never so right, cannot give laws nor prescribe rules to the actions of men, it would be of no behoof for the settling of order and establishment of government in its exercise and use amongst men, unless there were a way also taught how to know the person to whom it belonged to have this power, and exercise this dominion over others. It is in vain, then, to talk of subjection and obedience without telling us whom we are to obey; for were I never so fully persuaded that there ought to be magistracy and rule in the world, yet I am nevertheless at liberty still, till it appears who is the person that hath right to my obedience; since if there be no marks to know him by, and distinguish him that hath right to rule from other men, it may be myself as well as any other; and, therefore, though submission to government be every one's duty, yet since that signifies nothing but submitting to the direction and laws of such men as have authority to command, it is not enough to make a man a subject to convince him that there is "regal power" in the world, but there must be ways of designing, and knowing the person to whom this "regal power" of right belongs; and a man can never be obliged in conscience to submit to any power, unless he can be satisfied who is the person who has a right to exercise that power over him. If this were not so, there would be no distinction between pirates and lawful princes; he that has force is without any more ado to be obeyed, and crowns and sceptres would become the inheritance only of violence and rapine; men, too, might as often and as innocently change their governors as they do their

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