prime right of lineal fucceffion to paternal government, p. 18. §. 160. How did God re-establish it? by a law, a pofitive command? We find no fuch thing. Our author means then, that when God gave them a king, in giving them a king, he re-established the right, &c. To reeftablish de facto the right of lineal fucceffion to paternal government, is to put a man in poffeffion of that government which his fathers did enjoy, and he by lineal fucceffion had a right to: for, firft, if it were another government than what his ancestors had, it was not fucceeding to an ancient right, but beginning a new one: for if a prince fhould give a man, befides his antient patrimony, which for fome ages his family had been diffeized of, an additional eftate, never before in the poffeffion of his ancestors, he could not be faid to re-establish the right of lineal fucceffion to any more than what had been formerly enjoyed by his ancestors. If therefore the power the kings of Ifrael had, were any thing more than Ifaac or Jacob had, it was not the re-eftablishing in them the right of fucceffion to a power, but giving them a new power, however you please to call it, paternal or not: and whether Ifaac and Jacob had the fame power that the kings of Ifrael had, I defire any one, by what has been above faid, to confider; and I do not think they COL will will find, that §, 161. Next, there can be no re-establishment of the prime and ancient right of lineal Jucceffion to any thing, unless he, that is put in poffeffion of it, has the right to fucceed, and be the true and next heir to him he fucceeds to. Can that be a re-establishment, which begins in a new family? or that the re-establishment of an ancient right of lineal fucceffion, when a crown is given to one, who has no right of fucceffion to it, and who, if the lineal fucceffion had gone on, had been out of all poffibility of pretence to it? Saul, the first king God gave the Ifraelites, was of the tribe of Benjamin. Was the ancient and prime right of lineal fucceffion re-established in him? The next was David, the youngest fon of fee, of the pofterity of Judah, Jacob's third fon. Was the ancient and prime right of lineal fucceffion to paternal government reeftablished in him? or in Solomon, his younger fon and fucceffor in the throne? or in Fereboam over the ten tribes? or in Athaliah, a woman who reigned fix years an utter stranger to the royal blood? If the ancient and prime right of lineal fucceffion to paternal government were re-established in any of thefe or their pofterity, the ancient and prime right of lineal fucceffion to paternal government belongs to younger brothers as well as elder, and may be re-established in any man living; for whatN 4 ever : ever younger brothers, by ancient and prime -right of lineal fucceffion, may have as well as the elder, that every man living may have a right to, by lineal fucceffion, and Sir Robert as well as any other. And fo what a brave right of lineal fucceffion, to his paternal or regal government, our author has re-eftablished, for the fecuring the rights and inheritance of crowns, where every one may have it, let the world confider. zroderik of §. 162. But fays our author however, p. 19. Whenfoever God made choice of any special perfon to be king, he intended that the iffue also should have benefit thereof, as being comprehended fufficiently in the perfon of the father, altho' the father was only named in the grant. This yet will not help out fucceffion; for if, as our author fays, the benefit of the grant be intended to the issue of the grantee, this will not direct the fucceffion; fince, if God give any thing to a man and his issue in general, the claim cannot be to any one of that fue in particular; every one that is of his race will have an equal right. If it be faid, our author meant heir, I believe our author was as willing as any body to have used that word, if it would have ferved his turn but Solomon, who fucceeded David in the throne, being no more his heir than Jeroboam, who fucceeded him in the government of the ten tribes, was his iffue, our author had reason to avoid faying, That God intended it to the the heirs, when that would not hold in a fucceffion, which our author could not except against and fo he has left his fucceffion as undetermined, as if he had faid nothing sabouts it: for if the regal power be given by God to a man and his ifjue, as the land of Canaan was to Abraham and his feed, must -they not all have a title to it, all fhare in it? And one may as well fay, that by God's grant to Abraham and his feed, the land of Canaan was to belong only to one of his feed exclufive of all others, as by God's grant of \dominion to a man and his issue, this dominion was to belong in peculiar to one of his iffue exclufive of all others. §. 163. But how will our author prove that whenfoever God made choice of any special perfon to be a king, he intended that the (I fuppofe he means his) iffue alfo Should have benefit thereof? has he fo foon forgot Mofes and Joshua, whom in this very fection, he fays, God out of a special care chofe to govern as princes, and the judges that God raised up? Had not these princes, having the authority of the Supreme fatherhood, the fame power that the kings had; and being fpecially chofen by God himfelf, fhould not their fue have the benefit of that choice, as well as David's or Solomon's? If these had the paternal authority put into their hands im mediately by God, why had not their fue the benefit of this grant in a fucceffion to this power? or if they had it as Adam's heirs, why did not their heirs enjoy it after them by right defcending to them? for they could not be heirs to one another. Was the power the fame, and from the fame original, in Mofes, Joshua and the Judges, as it was in David and the Kings; and was it inheritable in one, and not in the other? If it was not paternal authority, then God's own people were governed by thofe that had not paternal authority, and thofe governors did well enough without it; if it were paternal authority, and God chofe the perfons that were to exercife it, our author's rule fails, that wbenfoever God makes choice of any person to be fupreme ruler (for I fuppofe the name king has no fpell in it, it is not the title, but the power makes the difference) be intends that the iffue alfo fhould have the benefit of it, fince from their coming out of Egypt to David's time, 400 years, the flue was never fo fufficiently comprehended in the perfon of the father, as that any fon, after the death of his father, fucceeded to the government amongst all thofe judges that judged Ifrael. If, to avoid this, it be faid, God always chofe the perfon of the fucceffor, and fo, transferring the fatherly authority to him, excluded his iffue from fucceeding to it, that is manifeftly not fo in the ftory of Jephtha, where he ar ticled with the people, and they made him judge over them, as is plain, Judg. 11. S. 164. |