so sacred amongst the sons of men, that there could be no power nor government without it; and yet that amongst His own people, even whilst he is providing a government for them, and therein prescribes rules to the several states and relations of men, this great and fundamental one, this most material and necessary of all the rest, should be concealed and lie neglected for 400 years after.

6.

166. Before I leave this, I must ask how our author knows that "whensoever God makes choice of any special person to be king, He intends that the issue should have the benefit thereof." Does God by the law of Nature or revelation say so? By the same law also He must say which of his issue" must enjoy the crown in succession, and so point out the heir, or else leave his "issue" to divide or scramble for the government; both alike absurd, and such as will destroy the benefit of such grant to the "issue." When any such declaration of God's intention is produced, it will be our duty to believe God intends it so, but till that be done, our author must show us some better warrant before we shall be obliged to receive him as the authentic revealer of God's intentions.

167. "The issue," says our author, "is comprehended sufficiently in the person of the father, 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 seed" into the grant too, so the priesthood was given to "Aaron and his seed"; and the crown God gave not only to David, but "his seed" alo; and however our author assures us that God "intends that the issue should have the benefit of it when He chooses any person to be king," yet we see that the kingdom He gave to Saul without mentioning his seed after him, never came to any of his issue; and why, when God chose a person to be king, He should intend that his "issue" should have the benefit of it more than when He chose one to be judge in Israel, I would fain know a reason ; or why does a grant of "fatherly authority" to a king more. comprehend the "issue" than when a like grant is made to a judge? Is "paternal authority" by right to descend to the "issue" of one and not of the other? There will need some reason to be shown of this difference, more than the name, when the thing given is the same "fatherly authority." and

the manner of giving it God's choice of the person; for I suppose our author, when he says "God raised up judges," will by no means allow they were chosen by the people.

168. But since our author has so confidently assured us of the care of God to preserve the "fatherhood," and pretends to build all, he says, upon the authority of the Scripture, we may well expect that that people whose law, constitution, and history is chiefly contained in the Scripture, should furnish him with the clearest instances of God's care of preserving of the fatherly authority in that people who, it is agreed, He had a most peculiar care of. Let us see, 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 confession, from their coming into Egypt till their return out of that bondage-above 200 years. From thence till God gave the Israelites a kingabout 400 years more-our author gives but a very slender account of it, nor, indeed, all that time are there the least footsteps of paternal or regal government amongst them. But then, says our author, "God re-established the ancient and prime right of lineal succession to paternal government."

169. What a "lineal succession to paternal government" was then established we have already seen. I only now consider how long this lasted, and that was to their captivity, about 500 years; from whence, to their destruction by the Romans, above 650 years after, the "ancient and prime right of lineal succession to paternal government" was again lost, and they continued a people in the promised 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 least footsteps of one moment of "paternal government, nor the re-establishment of the ancient and prime right of lineal succession to it," whether we suppose 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.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

1. IT having been shown in the foregoing discourse: Firstly. That Adam had not, either by natural right of fatherhood or by positive donation from God, any such authority over his children, nor dominion over the world, as is pretended.

Secondly. That if he had, his heirs yet had no right to it. Thirdly. That if his heirs had, there being no law of Nature nor positive law of God that determines which is the right heir in all cases that may arise, the right of succession, and consequently of bearing rule, could not have been certainly determined.

Fourthly. That if even that had been determined, yet the knowledge of which is the eldest line of Adam's posterity being so long since utterly lost, that in the races of mankind and families of the world, there remains not to one above another, the least pretence to be the eldest house, and to have the right of inheritance.

All these premises having, as I think, been clearly made out, it is impossible that the rulers now on earth should make any benefit, or derive any the least shadow of authority from that, which is held to be the fountain of all power, dam's private dominion and paternal jurisdiction;" so

he that will not give just occasion to think that all government in the world is the product only of force and violence, and that men live together by no other rules but that of beasts, where the strongest carries it, and so lay a foundation for perpetual disorder and mischief, tumult, sedition, and rebellion (things that the followers of that hypothesis so loudly cry out against), must of necessity find out another rise of government, another original of political power, and another way of designing and knowing

the persons that have it than what Sir Robert Filmer hath taught us.

2. To this purpose, I think it may not be amiss to set down what I take to be political power. That the power of a magistrate over a subject may be distinguished from that of a father over his children, a master over his servant, a husband over his wife, and a lord over his slave. All which distinct powers happening sometimes together in the same man, if he be considered under these different relations, it may help us to distinguish these powers one from another, and show the difference betwixt a ruler of a commonwealth, a father of a family, and a captain of a galley.

3. Political power, then, I take to be a right of making laws, with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community in the execution of such laws, and in the defence of the commonwealth from foreign injury, and all this only for the public good.

CHAPTER II.

Of the State of Nature.

4. To understand political power aright, and derive it from its original, we must consider what estate all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of Nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man.

A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another, there being nothing more evident than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of Nature, and the use of the same faculties,

should also be equal one amongst another. without subordi nation or subjection, unless the lor. and master of them. alshould, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on him, by an evident and ear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty.

5. This equality of men by Nature, the judicious Hooker looks upon as so evident in itself, and beyond all question, that he makes it the foundation of that obligation to mutual love amongst men on which he builds the duties they owe one another, and from whence he derives the great maxims of justice and charity. His words are :

"The like natural inducement hath brought men to know that it is no less their duty to love others than themselves, for seeing those things which are equal, must needs all have one measure; if I cannot but wish to receive good, even as much at every man's hands, as any man can wish unto his own soul, how should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like desire, which is undoubtedly in other men weak, being of one and the same nature: to have anything offered them repugnant to this desire must needs, in all respects, grieve them as much as me; so that if I do harm, I must look to suffer, there being no reason that others should show greater measure of love to me than they have by me showed unto them; my desire, therefore, to be loved of my equals in Nature, as much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to themward fully the like affection. From which relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several rules and canons natural reason hath drawn for direction of life no man is ignorant.' (Eccl. Pol. lib. i.)

6. But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of license; though man in that state have an uncontrollable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destrov himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but were some nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it. The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it, which obliges every one, and reason, which is that law, teaches a mankind who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one

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