§. 164. It is in vain then to say, that when foever God chooses any special perfon to have the exercife of paternal authority, (for if that be not to be king, I defire to know the dif ference between a king and one having the exercife of paternal authority) he intends the iffue alfo fhould have the benefit of it, fince we find the authority, the judges had, ended with them, and defcended not to their iffue and if the judges had not paternal authority, I fear it will trouble our author, or any of the friends to his principles, to tell who had then the paternal authority, that is, the government and fupreme power amongst the Ifraelites; and 1 fufpect they must confefs that the chofen people of God continued a people feveral hundreds of years, without any knowledge or thought of this paternal authority, or any appearance of monarchical government at all.

§. 165. To be fatisfied of this, he need but read the ftory of the Levite, and the war thereupon with the Benjamites, in the three laft chapters of Judges; and when he finds, that the Levite appeals to the people for justice that it was the tribes and the congregation, that debated, refolved, and directed all that was done on that occafion; he must conclude, either that God was not careful to preferve the fatherly authority amongst his own chofen people; or elfe that the fatherly authority may be preferved, where there is no

monarchical

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 go-> vernment 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, fhould be concealed, and lie neglected for 400 years after.

1

§. 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 should 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 iue muft enjoy the crown in fucceffion, and fo point out the heir, or elfe leave his iue to divide or fcramble for thegovernment: both alike abfurd, and fuch as will deftroy the benefit of fuch grant to the iffue. 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 receive

ceive him as the authentic revealer of God's intentions. N

u§. 167. The iffue, fays our author, is camprebended 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. 15. thought fit to put his feed into the grant too for the 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 iffue should have the benefit of it, when he chooses any perfon to be king, yet we fee that the kingdom which he gave to Saul, without mentioning his feed after him, never came to any of his ilue and why, when God chofe a perfon to be king, he fhould intend, that his ue. should 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 iue, than when a like grant is made to a judge? Is paternal authority by right to defcend to the issue of one, and not of the other? There will need some 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, God's choice of the perfon, the fame too; for I fuppofe our author, when he fays, God.

raised

raised up judges, will by no means allow, they were chofen by the people.

§. 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 hiftory 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 pecu→ liar care of. Let us fee then what state this paternal authority or government washin 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 I 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 deftruction by the Romans, above 650 years after,

4

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.