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to, his fathers. If he was fallen from his right, Jacob might have claimed it: but God was his inheritance; and, being assured of his blessing, he contented himself with what he could gain by his industry, in a way that was not at all suitable to the pomp and majesty of a king. Which way soever therefore the business be turned, whether, according to Isaac's blessing, Esau should serve Jacob; or our author's opinion, Jacob must serve Esau; neither of the two was effected in their persons: and the kingdom of two being divided into two, each of them remained lord of himself.

SECTION VIII.

THE POWER OF A FATHER BELONGS ONLY TO A

FATHER.

"If

THIS leads us to an easy determination of the question, which our author thinks insoluble. Adam was lord of his children, he doth not see how any can be free from the subjection of his parents." For as no good man will ever desire to be free from the respect that is due to his father, who did beget and educate him, no wise man will ever think the like to be due to his brother or nephew, that did neither. If Esau and Jacob were equally free; if Noah, as our author affirms, divided Europe, Asia,

and Africa amongst his three sons, though he cannot prove it; and if seventy-two nations, under so many heads or kings, went from Babylon to people the earth about a hundred and thirty years after the flood, I know not why, according to the same rule and proportion, it may not be safely concluded that in four thousand years kings are so multiplied, as to be in number equal to the men that are in the world; that is to say, they are, according to the laws of God and nature, all free, and independent upon each other, as Shem, Ham, and Japheth were. And therefore, though Adam and Noah had reigned alone, when there were no men in the world, except such as issued from them, that is no reason why any other should reign over those that he hath not begotten. As the right of Noah was divided amongst the children he left, and when he was dead no one of them depended on the other, because no one of them was father of the other; and the right of a father can only belong to him that is so; the like must forever attend every other father in the world. This paternal power must necessarily accrue to every father: he is a king by the same right as the sons of Noah; and how numerous soever families may be upon the increase of mankind, they are all free till they agree to recede from their own right and join together in or under one government, according to such laws as best please themselves.

SECTION IX.

SUCH AS ENTER INTO SOCIETY, MUST IN SOME DEGREE DIMINISH THEIR LIBERTY.

REASON leads them to this: no one man or family is able to provide that which is requisite for their convenience or security, whilst every one has an equal right to every thing, and none acknowledges a superior to determine the controversies that upon such occasions must continually arise, and will probably be so many and great that mankind cannot bear them. Therefore, though I do not believe that Bellarmine said, a commonwealth could not exercise its power; for he could not be ignorant that Rome and Athens did exercise theirs, and that all the regular kingdoms in the world are commonwealths; yet there is nothing of absurdity in saying, that man cannot continue in the perpetual and entire fruition of the liberty that God hath given him. The liberty of one is thwarted by that of another; and whilst they are all equal, none will yield to any, otherwise than by a general consent. This is the ground of all just governments; for violence or fraud can create no right; and the same consent gives the form to them all, how much soever they differ from each other. Some small numbers of men, living within the precincts of one city, have, as it were, cast into a common stock, the right which they had of governing themselves and chil

dren, and by common consent joining in one body, exercised such power over every single person as seemed beneficial to the whole; and this men call perfect "democracy." Others chose rather to be governed by a select number of such as excelled most in wisdom and virtue; and this, according to the signification of the word, was called "aristocracy;" or when one man excelled all others, the government was put into his hands under the name of "monarchy." But the wisest, best, and far the greatest part of mankind, rejecting these simple species, did form governments mixed or composed of the three, as shall be proved hereafter; which commonly received their respective denomination from the great part that prevailed, and did deserve praise or blame, as they were well or ill proportioned.

It were a folly hereupon to say, that the liberty for which we contend is of no use to us, since we cannot endure the solitude, barbarity, weakness, want, misery and dangers that accompany it whilst we live alone, nor can enter into a society without resigning it; for the choice of that society, and the liberty of framing it according to our own wills, for our own good, is all we seek. This remains to us whilst we form governments, that we ourselves are judges how far it is good for us to recede from our natural liberty which is of so great importance, that from thence only we can know whether we are freemen or slaves; and the difference between the best government and the worst, doth wholly depend upon a right

or wrong exercise of that power. If men are naturally free, such as have wisdom and understanding will always frame good governments; but if they are born under the necessity of a perpetual slavery, no wisdom can be of use to them; but all must forever depend on the will of their lords, how cruel, mad, proud, or wicked soever they be.

SECTION X.

NO MAN COMES TO COMMAND MANY, UNLESS BY CONSENT OR BY FORCE.

BUT because I cannot believe God hath created man in such a state of misery and slavery as I just now mentioned; by discovering the vanity of our author's whimsical patriarchal kingdom, I am led to a certain conclusion, that every father of a family is free and exempt from the domination of any other, as the seventy-two that went from Babel were. It is hard to comprehend how one man can come to be master of many, equal to himself in right, unless it be by consent, or by force. If by consent, we are at an end of our controversies: governments, and the magistrates that execute them, are created by They who give a being to them, cannot but have a right of regulating, limiting, and directing

man.

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