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but the power makes the difference) he intends that the issue also should have the benefit of it;" since from their coming out of Egypt to David's time (400 years) the issue was never "so sufficiently comprehended in the person of the father" as that any son, after the death of his father, succeeded to the government amongst all those judges that judged Israel. If to avoid this it be said God always chose the person of the successor, and so, transferring the "fatherly authority" to him, excluded his issue from succeeding to it, that is manifestly not so in the story of Jephtha, where he articled with the people, and they made him judge over them, as is plain (Judges xi.).

164. It is in vain, then, to say that "whensoever God chooses any special person" to have the exercise of " paternal authority" (for if that be not to be king, I desire to know the difference between a king and one having the exercise of" paternal authority"), "He intends the issue also should have the benefit of it," since we find the authority the judges had ended with them, and descended not to their issue; 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 supreme power amongst the Israelites; and I suspect they must confess that the chosen people of God continued a people several hundreds of years without any knowledge or thought of this "paternal authority," or any appearance of monarchical government at all.

165. To be satisfied of this, he need but read the story of the Levite, and the war thereupon with the Benjamites, in the three last 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, resolved, and directed all that was done on that occasion, he must conclude either that God was not "careful to preserve the fatherly authority" amongst His own chosen people, or else that the "fatherly authority" may be preserved where there is no monarchical government. If the latter, then it will follow that though "fatherly authority" be never so well proved, yet it will not infer a necessity of monarchical government; if the former, it will seem very strange and improbable that God should ordain "fatherly authority" to be

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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.

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" also; 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.'

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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.

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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 authcity 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, "Adam's private dominion and paternal jurisdiction;" so that 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

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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. Contrast w/ Hobbes

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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 inan.

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,

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