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monarchical government: if the latter, then it will follow, that though fatherly authority be never fo well proved, yet it will not infer a neceffity of monarchical government; if the former, it will feem very ftrange and improbable, that God fhould ordain fatherly authority to be fo facred amongst the fons of men, that there could be no power, or government without it, and yet that amongst his own people, even whilft he is providing a government for them, and therein prescribes rules to the feveral ftates and relations of men, this great and fundamental one, this most material and neceffary of all the reft, hould be concealed, and lie neglected for 400 years after. But Jordy 166. Before I leave this, I must ask how our author knows that whenfoever God makes choice of any special perfon to be king, he intends that the ijue fhould have the benefit thereof? Does God by the law of nature or revelation fay fo! By the fame law alfo he must say, which of his flue must enjoy the crown in fucceffion, and fo point out the heir, or elfel leave his iue to divide or fcramble for the government: both alike abfurd, and fuch as will deftroy the benefit of fuch grant to the iffue. When When any fuch declaration of God's intention is produced, it will be our duty to believe God intends it fo; but till that be done, our author must fhew us fome better warrant, before we shall be obliged to re

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ceive him as the authentic revealer of God's intentions. W J. 13) (Osvola fis u§. 167 Theciffue, fays our author, is comprehended fufficiently in the perfon of the fd ther, although the father only was named in the grant and yet God, when he gave the land of Canaan to Abraham, Gen. xiii. 5. thought fit to put his feed into the grant too for the go priesthood was given to Aaron and his feeds and the crown God gave not only to David, but his feed alfo: and however our author affures us that God intends, that the issue should bave the benefit of it, when he chooses any perfon too be king, yet we see that the kingdom which he gave to Saul, without mentioning his feed after him, never came to any of his ifue and why, when God chofe a person to be king, he fhould intend, that his ue fhould have the benefit of it, more than when he chofe one to be judge in Ifrael, I would fain know a reafon; or why does a grant of fatherly authority to a king more comprehend the fue, than when a like grant is made to a judge? Is paternal authority by right to defcend to the fue of one, and not of the other? There will need fome reason to be fhewn of this difference, more than the name, when the thing given is the fame fatherly authority, and the manner of giving it, i God's choice of the perfon, the fame too; for I fuppofe our author, when he fays, God

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raifed up judges, will by no means allow, they were chofen by the people, and ***

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§. 168. But fince our author has fo confidently affured us of the care of God to preferve the fatherhood, and pretends to build all he fays upon the authority of the ferip ture, we may well expect that that people, whofe law, conftitution and history is chiefly contained in the fcripture, fhould furnish him with the cleareft inftances of God's care of preferving the fatherly authority, in that people who it is agreed he had a most peculiar care of. Let us fee then what state this paternal authority or government was in amongst the Jews, from their beginning to be a people. It was omitted, by our author's confeffion, from their coming into Egypt, till their return out of that bondage, above 200 years from thence till God gave the If raelites a king, about 400 years more, our author gives but a very flender account of it; nor indeed all that time are there the leaft. footsteps of paternal or regal government amongst them. But then fays our author, God re-established the ancient and prime right of lineal fucceffion to paternal government.

§. 169. What a lineal fucceffion to paternal government was then established, we have already feen. I only now confider how long this lafted, and that was to their captivity, about 500 years: from thence to their de ftruction by the Romans, above 650 years after,

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after, the ancient and prime right of lineal Succeffion to paternal government was again loft, and they continued a people in the promifed land without it. So that of 1750 years that they were God's peculiar people, they had hereditary kingly government amongst them not one third of the time; and of that time there is not the leaft footstep of one moment of paternal government, nor the re-establishment of the ancient and prime right of lineal fucceffion to it, whether we fuppofe it to be derived, as from its fountain, from David, Saul, Abraham, or, which upon our author's principles is the only true, from Adam.