of families were but some petty lords under some greater kings, because the number of them are so many that their particular territories could be but small, and not worthy the title of kingdoms; but they must consider that at first kings had no such large dominions as they have nowadays. We find in the time of Abraham, which was about 300 years after the Flood, that in a little corner of Asia nine kings at once met in battle, most of which were but kings of cities apiece, with the adjacent territories, as of Sodom, Gomorrha, Shinar, &c. In the same chapter is mention of Melchisedek, king of Salem, which was but the city of Jerusalem. And in the catalogue of the Kings of Edom, the names of each king's city is recorded, as the only mark to distinguish their dominions. In the land of Canaan, which was but a small circuit, Joshua destroyed thirty-one kings, and about the same time Adonibesek had seventy kings whose hands and toes he had cut off, and made them feed under his table.* A few years after this, thirty-two kings came to Benhadad, king of Syria, and about seventy kings of Greece went to the Wars of Troy. Cæsar found more kings in France than there be now princes there, and at his sailing over into this island he found four kings in our county of Kent. These heaps of kings in each nation are an argument their territories were but small, and strongly confirms our assertion that erection of kingdoms came at first only by distinction of families.

By manifest footsteps we may trace this paternal government unto the Israelites coming into Egypt, where the exercise of supreme patriarchal jurisdiction was intermitted, because they were in subjection to a stronger prince. After the return of these Israelites out of bondage, God, out of a special care of them, chose Moses and Joshua successively to govern as princes in the place and stead of the supreme fathers; and after them likewise for a time He raised up Judges to defend His people in time of peril. But when God gave the Israelites kings, He re-established the ancient and prime right of lineal succession to paternal government. And whensoever He made choice of any special person to be king, He intended that the issue also should have benefit thereof, as being comprehended sufficiently in the person * I Kings xx. 16.

of the father, although the father only was named in the grant.

8. It may seem absurd to maintain that kings now are the fathers of their people, since experience shows the contrary. It is true, all kings be not the natural parents of their subjects, yet they all either are, or are to be reputed, the next heirs to those first progenitors who were at first the natural parents of the whole people, and in their right succeed to the exercise of supreme jurisdiction; and such heirs are not only lords of their own children, but also of their brethren, and all others that were subject to their fathers. And therefore we find that God told Cain of his brother Abel, "His desires shall be subject unto thee, and thou shalt rule over him." Accordingly, when Jacob bought his brother's birthright, Isaac blessed him thus: "Be lord over thy brethren, and let the sons of thy mother bow before thee."*

As long as the first fathers of families lived, the name of patriarchs did aptly belong unto them; but after a few descents, when the true fatherhood itself was extinct, and only the right of the father descends to the true heir, then the title of prince or king was more significant, to express the power of him who succeeds only to the right of that fatherhood which his ancestors did naturally enjoy. By this means it comes to pass, that many a child, by succeeding a king, hath the fight of a father over many a greyheaded multitude, and hath the title of Pater Patriæ.

9. It may be demanded what becomes of the right of fatherhood in case the Crown does escheat for want of an heir, whether doth it not then devolve to the people? The answer is: It is but the negligence or ignorance of the people to lose the knowledge of the true heir, for an heir there always is. If Adam himself were still living, and now ready to die, it is certain that there is one man, and but one in the world, who is next heir, although the knowledge who should be that one man be quite lost.

(2.) This ignorance of the people being admitted, it doth not by any means follow that, for want of heirs, the supreme power is devolved to the multitude, and that they have power to rule and choose what rulers they please. No; the * Gen, xxvii. 29.

kingly power escheats in such cases to the princes and independent heads of families, for every kingdom is resolved into those parts whereof at first it was made. By the uniting of great families or petty kingdoms, we find the greater monarchies were at the first erected; and into such again, as into their first matter, many times they return again. And because the dependency of ancient families is oft obscure or worn out of knowledge, therefore the wisdom of all or most princes have thought fit to adopt many times those for heads of families and princes of provinces whose merits, abilities, or fortunes have ennobled them, or made them fit and capable of such regal favours. All such prime heads and fathers have power to consent in the uniting or conferring of their fatherly right of sovereign authority on whom they please ; and he that is so elected claims not his power as a donative from the people, but as being substituted properly by God, from whom he receives his royal charter of an universal father, though testified by the ministry of the heads of the people.

If it please God, for the correction of the prince or punishment of the people, to suffer princes to be removed and others to be placed in their rooms, either by the factions of the nobility or rebellion of the people, in all such cases the judgment of God, who hath power to give and to take away kingdoms, is most just; yet the ministry of men who execute God's judgments without commission is sinful and damnable. God doth but use and turn men's unrighteous acts to the performance of His righteous decrees.

10. In all kingdoms or commonwealths in the world, whether the prince be the supreme father of the people or but the true heir of such a father, or whether he come to the Crown by usurpation, or by election of the nobles or of the people, or by any other way whatsoever, or whether some few or a multitude govern the commonwealth, yet still the authority that is in any one, or in many, or in all these, is the only right and natural authority of a supreme father. There is, and always shall be continued to the end of the world, a natural right of a supreme father over every multitude, although, by the secret will of God, many at first do most unjustly obtain the exercise of it.

To confirm this natural right of regal power, we find in the Decalogue that the law which enjoins obedience to

kings is delivered in the terms of "Honour thy father," as if all power were originally in the father. If obedience to parents be immediately due by a natural law, and subjection to princes but by the mediation of a human ordinance, what reason is there that the laws of nature should give place to the laws of men, as we see the power of the father over his child gives place and is subordinate to the power of the magistrate?

If we compare the natural rights of a father with those of a king, we find them all one, without any difference at all but only in the latitude or extent of them: as the father over one family, so the king, as father over many families, extends his care to preserve, feed, clothe, instruct, and defend the whole commonwealth. His war, his peace, his courts of justice, and all his acts of sovereignty, tend only to preserve and distribute to every subordinate and inferior father, and to their children, their rights and privileges, so that all the duties of a king are summed up in an universal fatherly care of his people.

CHAPTER II.

It is unnatural for the People to govern or choose Governors.

1. By conferring these proofs and reasons, drawn from the authority of the Scripture, it appears little less than a paradox which Bellarmine and others affirm of the freedom of the multitude, to choose what rulers they please.

Had the patriarchs their power given them by their own children? Bellarmine does not say it, but the contrary. If then, the fatherhood enjoyed this authority for so many ages by the law of nature, when was it lost, or when forfeited, or how is it devolved to the liberty of the multitude?

Because the Scripture is not favourable to the liberty of the people, therefore many fly to natural reason, and to the authority of Aristotle. I must crave liberty to examine or explain the opinion of this great philosopher; but briefly, I find this sentence in the third of his " Politics,"

cap. 16: δοκεῖ δέ τισιν οὐδὲ κατὰ φύσιν εἶναι τὸ κύριον ἕνα πάντων εἶναι τῶν πολιτῶν, ὅπου συνέστηκεν ἐξ ὁμοίων ἡ πόλις. It seems to some not to be natural for one man to be lord of all the citizens, since a city consists of equals. D. Lambine, in his Latin interpretation of this text, hath omitted the translation of this word [row] by this means he maketh that to be the opinion of Aristotle, which Aristotle allegeth to be the opinion but of some. This negligence, or wilful escape of Lambine, in not translating a word so material, hath been an occasion to deceive many, who, looking no further than this Latin translation, have concluded, and made the world now of late believe, that Aristotle here maintains a natural equality of men ; and not only our English translator of Aristotle's "Politics" is, in this place, misled by following Lambine, but even the learned Monsieur Duvall, in his "Synopsis," bears them company; and yet this version of Lambine's is esteemed the best, and printed at Paris, with Causabon's corrected Greek copy, though in the rendering of this place the elder translations have been more faithful; and he that shall compare the Greek text with the Latin shall find that Causabon had just cause in his preface to Aristotle's works to complain that the best translations of Aristotle did need correction. To prove that in these words, which seem to favour the equality of mankind, Aristotle doth not speak according to his own judgment, but recites only the opinion. of others, we find him clearly deliver his own opinion, that the power of government did originally arise from the right of fatherhood, which cannot possibly consist with that natural equality which men dream of; for, in the first of his "Politics" he agrees exactly with the Scripture, and lays this foundation of government. "The first society (saith he), made of many houses is a village, which seems most naturally to be a colony of families or foster-brethren of children and children's children. And, therefore, at the beginning, cities were under the government of kings, for the eldest in every house is king. And so for kindred sake it is in colonies. And in the fourth of his "Politics," cap. 2, he gives the title of the first and divinest sort of government to the institution of kings, by defining tyranny to be a digression from the first and divinest.