John Locke - Two Treatises of Government & A Letter Concerning Toleration (2003) PDF

Rethinking the Western Tradition The volumes in this series seek to address the present debate over the Western tradition by reprinting key works of that tradition along with essays that evaluate each text from di√erent perspectives. EDITORIAL COMMITTEE FOR Rethinking the Western Tradition David Bromwich Yale University Gerald Graff University of Illinois at Chicago Geoffrey Hartman Yale University Samuel Lipman (deceased) The New Criterion Gary Saul Morson Northwestern University Jaroslav Pelikan Yale University Marjorie Perloff Stanford University Richard Rorty Stanford University Alan Ryan New College, Oxford Ian Shapiro Yale University Frank M. Turner Yale University Allen W. Wood Stanford University Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration JOHN LOCKE Edited and with an Introduction by Ian Shapiro with essays by John Dunn Ruth W. Grant Ian Shapiro Yale University Press New Haven and London Published with assistance from the Annie Burr Lewis Fund. Copyright ∫ 2003 by Yale University. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Set in Times Roman type by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Printed in the United States of America by Vail-Ballou Press, Binghamton, New York. ISBNs: 0-300-10017-5 (cl.) 0-300-10018-3 (pbk.) A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress and the British Library. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contributors John Dunn is Fellow of King’s College and Professor of Political Theory at the University of Cambridge. Ruth W. Grant is Professor of Political Science at Duke University. Ian Shapiro is William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Yale University. Contents Introduction: Reading Locke Today ix Ian Shapiro Note on the Texts xvi Texts Two Treatises of Government 1 The First Treatise: The False Principles and Foundation of Sir Robert Filmer 7 The Second Treatise: An Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent, and End of Civil Government 100 A Letter Concerning Toleration 211 Essays Measuring Locke’s Shadow 257 John Dunn John Locke on Women and the Family 286 Ruth W. Grant John Locke’s Democratic Theory 309 Ian Shapiro Index 341 Introduction: Reading Locke Today IAN SHAPIRO Old books are read for many reasons. Intrinsic enjoyment is one. Coming to grips with the past is another. Understanding the origins of the world we live in is a third. Additional purposes become relevant when old books are part of a received canon. Canonized texts may be heralded as repositories of important truths. They might codify ideologies, whether dominant or sub- versive. They might be objects of controversy as to their true meaning. When canonized texts are works of political theory, it is usually because they are thought to illuminate enduring fundamentals of political associa- tion. Sometimes they gain additional notoriety when they move people, individually or collectively, to political action. John Locke’s mature writings about politics, collected here, are worth reading for all these reasons at least. They have stood the test of time as captivating works, in print more or less continuously for well over three centuries and translated into all of the world’s major languages. They are remarkable historical documents addressed to the turbulent political con- ﬂicts of Locke’s day, yet at the same time they transcend that and many another particular context to which they have been deemed relevant. In them Locke develops arguments about freedom of conscience and belief, the relations between religion and politics, the nature of property, the fam- ily, consent, majority rule, resistance, and the foundations of political legit- imacy that have become perennials of political argument in the modern West. Locke’s views on all these subjects are taken up in the interpretive essays that follow the texts in this volume. Here I will limit myself to some general remarks about his life and political writings. As is frequently true with canonized texts—indeed this often facilitates canonization—Locke’s central arguments are sufﬁciently complex that they invite disputations about their true meaning. Similar controversy at- tends the question whether Locke’s political writings stand independently of, are derived from, or live in tension with, his voluminous writings on philosophy and theology, and the degree to which his views evolved over the course of his lifetime. He was born in 1632 and died in 1704, so that his x Introduction life spanned one of the most tumultuous periods of English history. He was ten years old when England became divided by civil war and still at West- minster School when Charles I was executed nearby in 1649. He lived through the subsequent interregnum when various governments of the Commonwealth and Cromwell’s Protectorate were in power, the subse- quent Restoration of Charles II in 1660, and the radicalization of English politics in which he was sufﬁciently implicated so that he was forced into exile for most of the 1680s—returning only after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. For a long time it was believed that the Two Treatises, ﬁrst published in 1690, had been written as a justiﬁcation for the Revolution. Locke had sympathized with Parliament’s actions in forcing James II from the throne in response to his attempts to Catholicize the army, pack Parliament with his supporters, and suspend restrictions on his fellow Catholics. Following these and other provocations, the birth of James’s son in 1688 made the possibility of a Catholic dynasty in England real, leading Parliament to act by replacing James with William and Mary and instituting signiﬁcant con- stitutional constraints on the monarchy. The supremacy of Parliament, thus established, ﬁt hand in glove with the concluding arguments of the Second Treatise, and seemed to be validated by the right to resist that lay at the heart of Locke’s argument. The received view of Locke as the philosopher of the Revolution and the Two Treatises as his manifesto has been conclusively debunked by Peter Laslett and Richard Ashcraft who established that the bulk of it had in fact been written almost a decade earlier, so that, whatever its purposes, justify- ing the Glorious Revolution was not among them.∞ The debate on dating the Two Treatises has not been resolved deﬁnitively, and quite possibly it never will be.≤ However, it now seems clear that most of it was written some time between 1679 and 1681 in the wake of the Exclusion Crisis during which Protestant nobles led by the Earl of Shaftesbury sought to exclude Charles II’s Catholic brother James from the succession. It seems likely that initially much of it was written as an Exclusion tract, though Locke may well have revised and added extensively to it in the early 1680s when various plots were afoot to rid England of its monarch because of his pro-Catholic policies—plots in which certainly Shaftesbury, and probably Locke, were deeply implicated. It also seems clear that much of the material in the First Treatise—the entire document, if Laslett is to be believed—was written after the Second Treatise had been completed in response to the growing inﬂuence of Sir Robert Filmer’s absolutist views after 1680. Introduction xi Given this history, it is not surprising that the meaning and signiﬁcance of Locke’s political texts are continuing sources of scholarly controversy, as are the political implications people draw from them. In our own generation Locke’s texts have been seen as repositories of the core ideas of bourgeois individualism, but also as providing the intellectual resources and ideologi- cal ballast for a radical critique of capitalism and a democratic assault on the liberal constitutionalism.≥ We are not special in this regard. Every gen- eration has bred its Locke controversies, often—as is the case with ours— in ways that reﬂect and embody the great ideological contests of the day. Locke’s standing in the ideological lexicon is sufﬁcient to ensure that ﬁght- ing over his corpse is one of the forms political argument takes. Just as the exact role of Locke’s ideas in English politics of the 1680s continues to be debated by historians, so does the nature and extent of his inﬂuence in subsequent political conﬂicts, most notably on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English radicalism and on the architects of the Ameri- can Revolution.∂ But it is beyond debate that what people have taken to be Locke’s arguments have often been sources of political inspiration and activism to a greater degree than the historical Locke could ever have imagined. Although his inﬂuence on English high politics grew substan- tially in the last decade and a half of his life following 1688, he was an unlikely political champion. He lived most of his life before this in the shadows—ﬁrst in a successful though not especially distinguished aca- demic career at Oxford focused on medicine and philosophy that he began as a student in 1652; then, increasingly, in Shaftesbury’s household as a physician, conﬁdant, and tutor of children; and ﬁnally in exile in Holland and France after Shaftesbury’s death in 1683. Locke’s long association with Shaftesbury, which had begun in the late 1660s when Locke deployed his skill as a physician (most likely supple- mented by amazing luck) to plan and direct lifesaving surgery for Shaftes- bury, lasted for the rest of Shaftesbury’s life.∑ This relationship was the source of Locke’s political inﬂuence, and, indeed, arguably of his intellec- tual maturity as well. But even in his last years, when Locke had become a ﬁgure of considerable eminence partly due to his changed political fortunes after the Revolution and partly due to the publication of his major philo- sophical work the Essay Concerning Human Understanding in his own name in 1689, he continued to keep his political writings anonymous. This was perhaps out of fear of the possibility that James II, who had ﬂed to France in 1688, might reclaim the throne that Parliament had given William and Mary, or perhaps for other reasons. In any event, it was not until his xii Introduction very last years that he began to allow the political writings to be attributed to him, and then only among a small group of close acquaintances. The Two Treatises were unambiguously acknowledged as his only in his will. Locke’s political views evolved considerably over the course of his lifetime. Indeed, what is most remarkable about the young Locke given the tenor of his mature political writings is how little interested he seems to have been in politics or political theory. In the 1650s his principal interest was in medicine, partly as a result of his interactions with Robert Boyle (1627–1691) and others at the Oxford Experimental Philosophy Club. His early work with Boyle was on the human blood, then a revolutionary ﬁeld following Harvey’s discovery of the heart’s circulatory function some de- cades earlier. Locke’s medical researches with Boyle and later with the major physician of his age, Thomas Sydenham (1624–1689), seem ﬁrst to have brought him to prominence—leading to his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1668. In philosophy the major formative inﬂuence on him seems to have been Descartes, though from the beginning Locke’s philo- sophical reﬂections took a more empirical bent. In his Essays on the Law of Nature, probably prepared as lectures in his capacity as Censor of Moral Philosophy at Christ Church in 1663 or 1664, we ﬁnd Locke struggling— less than altogether successfully—to render arguments from nature, rea- son, and Scripture mutually compatible. This concern would preoccupy him for the rest of his life, with decisive implications for his moral and political philosophy.∏ To the extent that the young Locke had political views, they were con- servative, or at any rate apolitical. His embrace of authoritarian arrange- ments seems largely to have been unreﬂective, and his early writing on toleration gave no clue of the radical tolerationist stand in the Letter Con- cerning Toleration that was ﬁrst published anonymously in Latin in 1689 (though probably written while he was in exile in 1685) and translated into English more or less immediately by William Popple. Some scholars have argued for greater continuity between his earlier and later writings, some for less; this is not a controversy we will attempt to settle here.π It does seem clear that despite some underlying conceptual continuities, he was radi- calized politically during and after his association with Shaftesbury—even if historians continue to debate the extent to which the radicalization of Shaftesbury’s circle reﬂected tactical maneuvering against the possibility of a Catholic monarchy as distinct from genuine radical conviction. How much the changes in Locke’s views were accounted for by the association between the two men and how much by other factors, such as the drift of political events, no one can say. In any event, the Letter is an intensely Introduction xiii political document, geared to expanding toleration for Protestant noncon- formists while denying it to Catholics—scarcely a surprising move in light of not only the English political situation but also developments in France. In 1685 Louis XIV had revoked the Edict of Nantes that had ensured some toleration for Protestants for almost half a century. His brutal repression of the Huguenots must surely have concentrated minds about what would likely ensue across the Channel were Catholicism to become entrenched in the English monarchy. If Locke’s Letter speaks directly to these concerns by arguing against toleration for Catholics (along with atheists and ‘‘Mahometans’’) at the same time as it presses for unusually broad toleration of Protestant noncon- formists, his stance is not an unprincipled one. His reasons are political, not religious: atheists cannot be trusted to keep their promises, and Catholics and Mahometans are suspect because they owe allegiance to an alien earthly power.∫ Moreover, commingling earthly religious authority with political absolutism creates the danger that civil authority will try to tyran- nize over the soul, which can never be justiﬁed or even, ultimately, success- ful because authentic religious belief requires ‘‘inward persuasion of the mind.’’ Herein lies the link between the Letter and Locke’s broader political theory developed in the Two Treatises: his doctrine that all legitimate politi- cal authority is rooted in the consent of the governed. It has been clear since John Dunn’s seminal study of the religious foun- dations of Lockean political theory that Locke was not embracing atomistic individualism by taking this stand. Rather he was committed to a particular view of the nature of religious belief and the relationship between the individual and his creator that had to be rooted in authentic individual commitment.Ω This led to his view that religious convictions of all sorts should be tolerated so long as they do not threaten the integrity of the state, but this was a view he afﬁrmed, ultimately, for religious reasons. The goal was to protect religion by freeing it as much as possible from state inter- ference. In this pursuit, his impulse was comparable to that of the American founders who would argue a century later for disestablishment of the church in order to strengthen religion, not, as critics of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution often seem to assume, to weaken it. One cannot help but be struck by the afﬁnities between Locke’s argu- ment in the Letter and John Stuart Mill’s argument in On Liberty, even if Mill’s principle is more capacious in extending the realm of what must be tolerated beyond religion and including all types of belief—even atheism —within it. But there are important underlying differences.∞≠ Both writers deﬁne the limits to toleration in political terms by reference to when beliefs xiv Introduction or actions become threatening to others, not by reference to any claim about the validity of the beliefs themselves. And, even though Locke was pro- foundly religious while Mill could scarcely conceal his hostility to religion in general and Christianity in particular, both saw freedom of conscience and belief as the surest path to discovery of the truth in human affairs. But at the end of the day, Mill’s commitment to freedom was for its own sake—in this he was a true child of the Enlightenment. He saw individual freedom as the greatest good. For Locke, by contrast, freedom of conscience was valu- able for the more Lutheran reason that he thought it essential to spiritual salvation. In this reasoning, as in many other matters taken up in our inter- pretive essays, Locke is something of a hybrid ﬁgure. He makes arguments that endure as deﬁning features of political argument in the modern West, yet he does so in ways that reﬂect and embody premodern concerns. Read- ing Locke reveals that we have more complex links to our past than we might otherwise perceive. notes 1. See the introduction to John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, Peter Laslett, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 61, 123–26, and Richard Ashcraft, Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (Lon- don: Allen & Unwin, 1987). 2. For the current state of the debate, see the introduction to Locke, Political Writings of John Locke, David Wootton, ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1993), pp. 49–94. 3. Different variants of the bourgeois individualism charge were leveled by C. B. Macpherson, in The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962), pp. 194–257, and Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971 ), pp. 202–51. The case for Locke’s political radicalism has been most trenchantly made by Richard Ashcraft in Revolutionary Politics and Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986). 4. On the use of Locke’s arguments by eighteenth- and nineteenth- century arguments over poor relief, see Richard Ashcraft, ‘‘Lockean Ideas, Poverty, and the Development of Liberal Political Theory,’’ in John Brewer and Susan Staves, eds., Early Modern Conceptions of Property (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 43–61. On the much debated subject of the relative inﬂuence of Lockean versus civic republican and other inﬂuences on the Introduction xv American Revolution, see Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), and Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic (New York: W. W. Norton, 1969). 5. See Peter Laslett’s introduction in Locke, Two Treatises of Govern- ment, pp. 25–37. 6. On the relations among Locke’s arguments from nature, reason, and Scripture as they affected his political philosophy, see Ian Shapiro, The Evolution of Rights in Liberal Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 80–148. 7. See J. W. Gough, ‘‘The Development of Locke’s Belief in Tolera- tion,’’ and Paul J. Kelly, ‘‘John Locke: Authority, Conscience, and Religious Toleration,’’ in Susan Mendus and John Horton, eds., A Letter Concerning Toleration in Focus (London: Routledge, 1991), pp. 57–77 and pp. 125– 146, for the argument that his later views are reconcilable with his earlier writings. For the contrary view that there is a disjunction between his early authoritarian phase and his later radical one, see Maurice Cranston, ‘‘John Locke and the Case for Toleration,’’ ibid., pp. 78–97. 8. This subject is explored at some length in my contribution to the present volume. 9. John Dunn, The Political Thought of John Locke (Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press, 1969). The religious foundations of Lockean polit- ical theory were further explored by James Tully in A Discourse Concern- ing Property: John Locke and His Adversaries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980). Perhaps the deﬁnitive treatment of Locke’s re- ligious views, particularly as they shape his attitude toward toleration, is John Marshall’s John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 10. See John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1978 ). Note on the Texts The texts of Locke’s Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration used here are taken from volumes 5 and 6 of The Works of John Locke (10 vols.; London: Thomas Tegg, W. Sharpe and Son, G. Offor, G. and J. Robinson, J. Evans and Co., also R. Grifﬁn and Co, Glasglow, and J. Cumming, Dublin, 1823). Obvious errors have been corrected. Two Treatises of Government. IN THE FORMER, THE FALSE PRINCIPLES AND F O U N D AT I O N O F S I R R O B E RT F I L M E R , A N D H I S F O L L OW E R S , A R E D E T E C T E D A N D OV E RT H R OW N : T H E L AT T E R , I S A N E S S AY C O N C E R N I N G T H E T RU E O R I G I N A L , E X T E N T, A N D E N D, O F C I V I L G O V E R N M E N T. The Preface. reader, Thou hast here the beginning and end of a discourse concerning govern- ment ; what fate has otherwise disposed of the papers that should have ﬁlled up the middle, and were more than all the rest, it is not worth while to tell thee. These which remain I hope are sufﬁcient to establish the throne of our great restorer, our present king William ; to make good his title in the consent of the people ; which being the only one of all lawful governments, he has more fully and clearly than any prince in Christendom ; and to justify to the world the people of England, whose love of their just and natural rights, with their resolution to preserve them, saved the nation when it was on the very brink of slavery and ruin. If these papers have that evidence I ﬂatter myself is to be found in them, there will be no great miss of those which are lost, and my reader may be satisﬁed without them. For I imagine I shall have neither the time nor inclination to repeat my pains, and ﬁll up the wanting part of my answer, by tracing sir Robert again through all the windings and obscurities which are to be met with in the several branches of his wonderful system. The king, and body of the nation, have since so thoroughly confuted his hypothesis, that I suppose nobody hereafter will have either the conﬁdence to appear against our common safety, and be again an advocate for slavery ; or the weakness to be deceived with contra- dictions dressed up in a popular style and well turned periods. For if any one will be at the pains himself, in those parts which are here untouched, to strip sir Robert’s discourses of the ﬂourish of doubtful expressions, and endeav- our to reduce his words to direct, positive, intelligible propositions, and then compare them one with another, he will quickly be satisﬁed there was never so much glib nonsense put together in well sounding English. If he think it not worth while to examine his works all through, let him make an experiment in that part where he treats of usurpation ; and let him try whether he can, with all his skill, make sir Robert intelligible and consistent with himself, or common sense. I should not speak so plainly of a gentle- man, long since past answering, had not the pulpit, of late years, publicly 4 Two Treatises of Government owned his doctrine, and made it the current divinity of the times. It is necessary those men who, taking on them to be teachers, have so dan- gerously misled others, should be openly showed of what authority this their patriarch is, whom they have so blindly followed ; that so they may either retract what upon so ill grounds they have vented, and cannot be maintained ; or else justify those principles which they have preached up for Gospel, though they had no better an author than an English courtier. For I should not have writ against sir Robert, or taken the pains to show his mistakes, inconsistencies, and want of (what he so much boasts of, and pretends wholly to build on) Scripture-proofs, were there not men amongst us who, by crying up his books, and espousing his doctrine, save me from the reproach of writing against a dead adversary. They have been so zealous in this point, that if I have done him any wrong, I cannot hope they should spare me. I wish, where they have done the truth and the public wrong, they would be as ready to redress it, and allow its just weight to this reﬂection, viz. that there cannot be done a greater mischief to prince and people, than the propagating wrong notions concerning government ; that so at last all times might not have reason to complain of the ‘‘ drum ecclesiastic.’’ If any one really concerned for truth undertake the confutation of my hypothesis, I promise him either to recant my mistake, upon fair conviction, or to answer his difﬁculties. But he must remember two things, First, That cavilling here and there at some expression or little incident of my discourse, is not an answer to my book. Secondly, That I shall not take railing for arguments, nor think either of these worth my notice : though I shall always look on myself as bound to give satisfaction to any one who shall appear to be conscientiously scrupu- lous in the point, and shall show any just grounds for his scruples. I have nothing more but to advertise the reader, that A. stands for our author, O. for his Observations on Hobbes, Milton, &c. And that a bare quotation of pages always means pages of his Patriarcha, edit. 1680. Contents OF THE TWO TREATISES OF GOVERNMENT. BOOK I: FIRST TREATISE Chap. I. The introduction 7 II. Of paternal and regal power 9 III. Of Adam’s title to sovereignty, by creation 14 IV. Of Adam’s title to sovereignty, by donation, Gen. i. 28. 18 V. Of Adam’s title to sovereignty, by the subjection of Eve 30 VI. Of Adam’s title to sovereignty, by fatherhood 34 VII. Of fatherhood and property considered together as fountains of sovereignty 48 VIII. Of the conveyance of Adam’s sovereign monarchical power 52 IX. Of monarchy, by inheritance from Adam 54 X. Of the heir to Adam’s monarchical power 64 XI. Who heir ? 66 BOOK II: SECOND TREATISE Chap. I. The introduction 100 II. Of the state of nature 101 III. Of the state of war 107 IV. Of slavery 109 V. Of property 111 VI. Of paternal power 122 VII. Of political or civil society 133 VIII. Of the beginning of political societies 141 IX. Of the ends of political society and government 154 X. Of the forms of a commonwealth 157 XI. Of the extent of the legislative power 158 XII. Of the legislative, executive, and federative power of the commonwealth 164 6 Two Treatises of Government XIII. Of the subordination of the powers of the commonwealth 166 XIV. Of prerogative 171 XV. Of paternal, political, and despotical power, considered together 176 XVI. Of conquest 178 XVII. Of usurpation 187 XVIII. Of tyranny 188 XIX. Of the dissolution of government 193 Of Government. BOOK I: FIRST TREATISE CHAPTER I. § 1. Slavery is so vile and miserable an estate of man, and so directly opposite to the generous temper and courage of our nation, that it is hardly to be conceived that an Englishman, much less a gentleman, should plead for it. And truly I should have taken sir Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha, as any other treatise, which would persuade all men that they are slaves, and ought to be so, for such another exercise of wit as was his who writ the encomium of Nero ; rather than for a serious discourse, meant in earnest : had not the gravity of the title and epistle, the picture in the front of the book, and the applause that followed it, required me to believe that the author and pub- lisher were both in earnest. I therefore took it into my hands with all the expectation, and read it through with all the attention due to a treatise that made such a noise at its coming abroad ; and cannot but confess myself mightily surprised that in a book, which was to provide chains for all mankind, I should ﬁnd nothing but a rope of sand ; useful perhaps to such whose skill and business it is to raise a dust, and would blind the people, the better to mislead them ; but in truth not of any force to draw those into bondage who have their eyes open, and so much sense about them, as to consider that chains are but an ill wearing, how much care soever hath been taken to ﬁle and polish them. § 2. If any one think I take too much liberty in speaking so freely of a man who is the great champion of absolute power, and the idol of those who worship it ; I beseech him to make this small allowance for once, to one who, even after the reading of sir Robert’s book, cannot but think himself, as the laws allow him, a free man : and I know no fault it is to do so, unless 8 First Treatise any one, better skilled in the fate of it than I, should have it revealed to him that this treatise, which has lain dormant so long, was, when it appeared in the world, to carry, by strength of its arguments, all liberty out of it ; and that, from thenceforth, our author’s short model was to be the pattern in the mount, and the perfect standard of politics for the future. His system lies in a little compass ; it is no more but this, ‘‘ That all government is absolute monarchy.’’ And the ground he builds on is this, ‘‘ That no man is born free.’’ § 3. In this last age a generation of men has sprung up amongst us, that would ﬂatter princes with an opinion, that they have a divine right to absolute power, let the laws by which they are constituted and are to govern, and the conditions under which they enter upon their authority, be what they will ; and their engagements to observe them ever so well ratiﬁed by solemn oaths and promises. To make way for this doctrine, they have denied mankind a right to natural freedom ; whereby they have not only, as much as in them lies, exposed all subjects to the utmost misery of tyranny and oppression, but have also unsettled the titles and shaken the thrones of princes : (for they too, by these men’s system, except only one, are all born slaves, and by divine right are subjects to Adam’s right heir) ; as if they had designed to make war upon all government, and subvert the very founda- tions of human society, to serve their present turn. § 4. However we must believe them upon their own bare words, when they tell us, ‘‘ We are all born slaves, and we must continue so ;’’ there is no remedy for it ; life and thraldom we entered into together, and can never be quit of the one till we part with the other. Scripture or reason, I am sure, do not any where say so, notwithstanding the noise of divine right, as if divine authority hath subjected us to the unlimited will of another. An admirable state of mankind, and that which they have not had wit enough to ﬁnd out till this latter age ! For however sir Robert Filmer seems to condemn the novelty of the contrary opinion, Patr. p. 3, yet I believe it will be hard for him to ﬁnd any other age, or country of the world, but this, which has asserted monarchy to be jure divino. And he confesses, Patr. p. 4, that ‘‘Heyward, Blackwood, Barclay, and others, that have bravely vindicated the right of kings in most points, never thought of this ; but, with one consent, admitted the natural liberty and equality of mankind.’’ § 5. By whom this doctrine came at ﬁrst to be broached, and brought in fashion amongst us, and what sad effects it gave rise to, I leave to historians to relate, or to the memory of those who were contemporaries with Sibthorp and Manwaring to recollect. My business at present is only to consider what First Treatise 9 sir Robert Filmer, who is allowed to have carried this argument farthest, and is supposed to have brought it to perfection, has said in it : for from him every one, who would be as fashionable as French was at court, has learned and runs away with this short system of politics, viz. ‘‘ Men are not born free, and therefore could never have the liberty to choose either governors, or forms of government. ‘‘ Princes have their power absolute, and by divine right ; for slaves could never have a right to compact or consent. Adam was an absolute monarch, and so are all princes ever since. CHAPTER II. Of paternal and regal Power. § 6. Sir Robert Filmer’s great position is, that ‘‘ men are not naturally free.’’ This is the foundation on which his absolute monarchy stands, and from which it erects itself to an height, that its power is above every power : caput inter nubila, so high above all earthly and human things, that thought can scarce reach it ; that promises and oaths, which tie the inﬁnite Deity, cannot conﬁne it. But if this foundation fails, all his fabric falls with it, and governments must be left again to the old way of being made by contriv- ance and the consent of men (£Anyrvpính xtísiw) making use of their reason to unite together into society. To prove this grand position of his, he tells us, p. 12, ‘‘ Men are born in subjection to their parents,’’ and therefore cannot be free. And this authority of parents he calls ‘‘ royal authority,’’ p. 12, 14, ‘‘ fatherly authority, right of fatherhood,’’ p. 12, 20. One would have thought he would, in the beginning of such a work as this, on which was to depend the authority of princes, and the obedience of subjects, have told us expressly what that fatherly authority is, have deﬁned it, though not limited it, because in some other treatises of his he tells us, it is unlimited, and unlimitable * ; he should at least have given us such an account of it, that we might have had an entire notion of this fatherhood, or fatherly authority, * ‘‘ In grants and gifts that have their original from God or nature, as the power of the father hath, no inferior power of man can limit, nor shake any law of prescription against them.’’ Obs. 158. ‘‘ The Scripture teaches that supreme power was originally in the father, without any limitation.’’ Obs. 245. 10 First Treatise whenever it came in our way, in his writings : this I expected to have found in the ﬁrst chapter of his Patriarcha. But instead thereof, having, 1. En passant, made his obeisance to the arcana imperii, p. 5 ; 2. Made his com- pliment to the ‘‘ rights and liberties of this or any other nation,’’ p. 6, which he is going presently to null and destroy ; and 3. Made his leg to those learned men who did not see so far into the matter as himself, p. 7 : he comes to fall on Bellarmine, p. 8, and by a victory over him establishes his fatherly authority beyond any question. Bellarmine being routed by his own con- fession, p. 11, the day is clear got, and there is no more need of any forces : for having done that, I observe not that he states the question, or rallies up any arguments to make good his opinion, but rather tells us the story as he thinks ﬁt of this strange kind of domineering phantom called the father- hood, which whoever could catch presently got empire, and unlimited abso- lute power. He acquaints us how this fatherhood began in Adam, continued its course, and kept the world in order all the time of the patriarchs till the ﬂood ; got out of the ark with Noah and his sons, made and supported all the kings of the earth till the captivity of the Israelites in Egypt ; and then the poor fatherhood was under hatches, till ‘‘ God, by giving the Israelites kings, re-established the ancient and prime right of the lineal succession in paternal government.’’ This is his business from p. 12 to 19. And then, obviating an objection, and clearing a difﬁculty or two with one-half reason, p. 23, ‘‘ to conﬁrm the natural right of regal power,’’ he ends the ﬁrst chapter. I hope it is no injury to call an half quotation an half reason ; for God says, ‘‘ Honour thy father and mother ;’’ but our author contents him- self with half, leaves out ‘‘ thy mother’’ quite, as little serviceable to his purpose. But of that more in another place. § 7. I do not think our author so little skilled in the way of writing discourses of this nature, nor so careless of the point in hand, that he by oversight commits the fault that he himself, in his ‘‘ anarchy of a mixed monarchy,’’ p. 239, objects to Mr. Hunton in these words : ‘‘ Where ﬁrst I charge the A. that he hath not given us any deﬁnition or description of monarchy in general ; for by the rules of method he should have ﬁrst de- ﬁned.’’ And by the like rule of method, sir Robert should have told us what his fatherhood, or fatherly authority is, before he had told us in whom it was to be found, and talked so much of it. But, perhaps, sir Robert found, that this fatherly authority, this power of fathers, and of kings, for he makes them both the same, p. 24, would make a very odd and frightful ﬁgure, and very disagreeing with what either children imagine of their parents, or subjects of their kings, if he should have given us the whole draught to- gether, in that gigantic form he had painted it in his own fancy ; and there- First Treatise 11 fore, like a wary physician, when he would have his patient swallow some harsh or corrosive liquor, he mingles it with a large quantity of that which may dilute it, that the scattered parts may go down with less feeling, and cause less aversion. § 8. Let us then endeavour to ﬁnd what account he gives us of this fatherly authority, as it lies scattered in the several parts of his writings. And ﬁrst, as it was vested in Adam, he says, ‘‘ Not only Adam, but the succeeding patriarchs, had, by right of fatherhood, royal authority over their children, p. 12. This lordship, which Adam by command had over the whole world, and by right descending from him the patriarchs did enjoy, was as large and ample as the absolute dominion of any monarch which hath been since the creation, p. 13. Dominion of life and death, making war, and concluding peace, p. 13. Adam and the patriarchs had absolute power of life and death, p. 35. Kings, in the right of parents, succeed to the exercise of supreme jurisdiction, p. 19. As kingly power is by the law of God, so it hath no inferior law to limit it ; Adam was lord of all, p. 40. The father of a family governs by no other law than by his own will, p. 78. The superiority of princes is above laws, p. 79. The unlimited jurisdiction of kings is so amply described by Samuel, p. 80. Kings are above the laws,’’ p. 93. And to this purpose see a great deal more, which our A. delivers in Bodin’s words : ‘‘ It is certain, that all laws, privileges, and grants of princes, have no force but during their life, if they be not ratiﬁed by the express consent, or by suf- ferance of the prince following, especially privileges, O. p. 279. The reason why laws have been also made by kings, was this : when kings were either busied with wars, or distracted with public cares, so that every private man could not have access to their persons, to learn their wills and pleasure, then were laws of necessity invented, that so every particular subject might ﬁnd his prince’s pleasure deciphered unto him in the tables of his laws, p. 92. In a monarchy, the king must by necessity be above the laws, p. 100. A perfect kingdom is that, wherein the king rules all things, according to his own will, p. 100. Neither common nor statute laws are, or can be, any diminution of that general power, which kings have over their people, by right of father- hood, p. 115. Adam was the father, king, and lord over his family ; a son, a subject, and a servant or slave, were one and the same thing at ﬁrst. The father had power to dispose or sell his children or servants ; whence we ﬁnd, that, in the ﬁrst reckoning up of goods in Scripture, the man-servant and the maid-servant are numbered among the possessions and substance of the owner, as other goods were, O. pref. God also hath given to the father a right or liberty to alien his power over his children to any other ; whence we ﬁnd the sale and gift of children to have been much in use in the beginning 12 First Treatise of the world, when men had their servants for a possession and an inheri- tance, as well as other goods ; whereupon we ﬁnd the power of castrating and making eunuchs much in use in old times, O. p. 155. Law is nothing else but the will of him that hath the power of the supreme father, O. p. 223. It was God’s ordinance that the supremacy should be unlimited in Adam, and as large as all the acts of his will ; and as in him, so in all others that have supreme power,’’ O. p. 245. § 9. I have been fain to trouble my reader with these several quotations in our A.’s own words, that in them might be seen his own description of his fatherly authority, as it lies scattered up and down in his writings, which he supposes was ﬁrst vested in Adam, and by right belongs to all princes ever since. This fatherly authority then, or right of fatherhood, in our A.’s sense, is a divine unalterable right of sovereignty, whereby a father or a prince hath an absolute, arbitrary, unlimited, and unlimitable power over the lives, liberties, and estates of his children and subjects ; so that he may take or alienate their estates, sell, castrate, or use their persons as he pleases, they being all his slaves, and he lord or proprietor of every thing, and his un- bounded will their law. § 10. Our A. having placed such a mighty power in Adam, and upon that supposition founded all government and all power of princes, it is reason- able to expect that he should have proved this with arguments clear and evi- dent, suitable to the weightiness of the cause. That since men had nothing else left them, they might in slavery have such undeniable proofs of its necessity, that their consciences might be convinced, and oblige them to submit peaceably to that absolute dominion, which their governors had a right to exercise over them. Without this, what good could our A. do, or pretend to do, by erecting such an unlimited power, but ﬂatter the natural vanity and ambition of men, too apt of itself to grow and increase with the possession of any power ? And by persuading those, who, by the consent of their fellow-men, are advanced to great but limited degrees of it, that by that part which is given them, they have a right to all that was not so ; and therefore may do what they please, because they have authority to do more than others, and so tempt them to do what is neither for their own, nor the good of those under their care ; whereby great mischiefs cannot but follow. § 11. The sovereignty of Adam being that on which, as a sure basis, our A. builds his mighty absolute monarchy, I expected, that, in his Patriarcha, this his main supposition would have been proved and established with all that evidence of arguments that such a fundamental tenet required ; and that this, on which the great stress of the business depends, would have been made out, with reasons sufﬁcient to justify the conﬁdence with which it was First Treatise 13 assumed. But, in all that treatise, I could ﬁnd very little tending that way ; the thing is there so taken for granted, without proof, that I could scarce believe myself, when, upon attentive reading that treatise, I found there so mighty a structure raised upon the bare supposition of this foundation. For it is scarce credible, that in a discourse, where he pretends to confute the erroneous principle of man’s natural freedom, he should do it by a bare supposition of Adam’s authority, without offering any proof for that author- ity. Indeed, he conﬁdently says, that Adam had ‘‘ royal authority, p. 12 and 13. Absolute lordship and dominion of life and death, p. 13. An universal monarchy, p. 33. Absolute power of life and death,’’ p. 35. He is very frequent in such assertions ; but, what is strange, in all his whole Patriarcha, I ﬁnd not one pretence of a reason to establish this his great foundation of government ; not any thing that looks like an argument, but these words : ‘‘ 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, Honour thy father ; as if all power were originally in the father.’’ And why may I not add as well, that in the decalogue the law that enjoins obedience to queens, is delivered in the terms of ‘‘ Honour thy mother,’’ as if all power were originally in the mother ? The argument, as sir Robert puts it, will hold as well for one as the other ; but of this more in its due place. § 12. All that I take notice of here is, that this is all our A. says, in this ﬁrst, or any of the following chapters, to prove the absolute power of Adam, which is his great principle : and yet, as if he had there settled it upon sure demonstration, he begins his second chapter with these words, ‘‘ By confer- ring these proofs and reasons, drawn from the authority of the Scripture.’’ Where those proofs and reasons for Adam’s sovereignty are, bating that of Honour thy father, above-mentioned, I confess, I cannot ﬁnd ; unless what he says, p. 11, ‘‘ In these words we have an evident confession,’’ viz. of Bellarmine, ‘‘ that creation made man prince of his posterity,’’ must be taken for proofs and reasons drawn from Scripture, or for any sort of proof at all : though from thence, by a new way of inference, in the words imme- diately following, he concludes the royal authority of Adam sufﬁciently settled in him. § 13. If he has in that chapter, or any where in the whole treatise, given any other proofs of Adam’s royal authority, other than by often repeating it, which, among some men, goes for argument, I desire any body for him to show me the place and page, that I may be convinced of my mistake, and acknowledge my oversight. If no such arguments are to be found, I beseech those men, who have so much cried up this book, to consider, whether they do not give the world cause to suspect, that it is not the force of reason and 14 First Treatise argument that makes them for absolute monarchy, but some other by inter- est, and therefore are resolved to applaud any author that writes in favour of this doctrine, whether he support it with reason or no. But I hope they do not expect, that rational and indifferent men should be brought over to their opinion, because this their great doctor of it, in a discourse made on purpose to set up the absolute monarchical power of Adam, in opposition to the natural freedom of mankind, has said so little to prove it, from whence it is rather naturally to be concluded, that there is little to be said. § 14. But that I might omit no care to inform myself in our author’s full sense, I consulted his Observations on Aristotle, Hobbes, &c. to see whether in disputing with others he made use of any arguments for this his darling tenet of Adam’s sovereignty ; since in his treatise of the Natural Power of Kings ; he hath been so sparing of them. In his Observations on Mr. Hobbes’s Leviathan, I think he has put, in short, all those arguments for it together, which in his writings I ﬁnd him any where to make use of : his words are these : ‘‘ If God created only Adam, and of a piece of him made the woman, and if by generation from them two, as parts of them, all mankind be propagated : if also God gave to Adam not only the dominion over the woman and the children that should issue from them, but also over all the earth to subdue it, and over all the creatures on it, so that, as long as Adam lived, no man could claim or enjoy any thing but by donation, assig- nation, or permission from him, I wonder,’’ &c. Obs. 165. Here we have the sum of all his arguments, for Adam’s sovereignty, and against natural free- dom, which I ﬁnd up and down in his other treatises : and they are these following ; ‘‘ God’s creation of Adam, the dominion he gave him over Eve, and the dominion he had as father over his children ;’’ all which I shall particularly consider. CHAPTER III. Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty by Creation. § 15. Sir Robert, in his preface to his Observations on Aristotle’s Poli- tics, tells us, ‘‘ A natural freedom of mankind cannot be supposed, without the denial of the creation of Adam :’’ but how Adam’s being created, which was nothing but his receiving a being, immediately from Omnipotency, and the hand of God, gave Adam a sovereignty over any thing, I cannot see ; nor First Treatise 15 consequently understand, how a supposition of natural freedom is a denial of Adam’s creation ; and would be glad any body else (since our A. did not vouchsafe us the favour) would make it out for him. For I ﬁnd no difﬁculty to suppose the freedom of mankind, though I have always believed the creation of Adam. He was created, or began to exist, by God’s immediate power, without the intervention of parents, or the pre-existence of any of the same species to beget him, when it pleased God he should ; and so did the lion, the king of beasts, before him, by the same creating power of God : and if bare existence by that power, and in that way, will give dominion, without any more ado, our A. by this argument, will make the lion have as good a title to it as he, and certainly the ancienter. No ; for Adam had his title ‘‘ by the appointment of God,’’ says our A. in another place. Then bare creation gave him not dominion, and one might have supposed mankind free, without the denying the creation of Adam, since it was God’s appoint- ment made him monarch. § 16. But let us see how he puts his creation and this appointment together. ‘‘ By the appointment of God, says sir Robert, as soon as Adam was created, he was monarch of the world, though he had no subjects ; for though there could not be actual government till there were subjects, yet by the right of nature it was due to Adam to be governor of his posterity : though not in act, yet at least in habit, Adam was a king from his creation.’’ I wish he had told us here, what he meant by God’s appointment. For what- soever providence orders, or the law of nature directs, or positive revelation declares, may be said to be by God’s appointment : but I suppose it cannot be meant here in the ﬁrst sense, i.e. by providence ; because that would be to say no more, but that as soon as Adam was created, he was de facto mon- arch, because by right of nature it was due to Adam to be governor of his posterity. But he could not, de facto, be by providence constituted the governor of the world, at a time when there was actually no government, no subjects to be governed, which our A. here confesses. Monarch of the world is also differently used by our A., for sometimes he means by it a proprietor of all the world, exclusive of the rest of mankind, and thus he does in the same page of his preface before cited : ‘‘ Adam, says he, being commanded to multiply and people the earth, and subdue it, and having dominion given him over all creatures, was thereby the monarch of the whole world ; none of his posterity had any right to possess any thing but by his grant or permission, or by succession from him.’’ 2. Let us understand then, by monarch, proprietor of the world, and, by appointment, God’s actual dona- tion, and revealed positive grant made to Adam, Gen. i. 28, as we see sir Robert himself does in this parallel place ; and then his argument will stand 16 First Treatise thus : ‘‘ by the positive grant of God : as soon as Adam was created, he was proprietor of the world, because by the right of nature it was due to Adam to be governor of his posterity.’’ In which way of arguing there are two mani- fest falsehoods. First, it is false, that God made that grant to Adam, as soon as he was created, since, though it stands in the text immediately after his creation, yet it is plain it could not be spoken to Adam till after Eve was made and brought to him ; and how then could he be monarch by appoint- ment as soon as created, especially since he calls, if I mistake not, that which God says to Eve, Gen. iii. 16, the original grant of government, which not being till after the fall, when Adam was somewhat, at least in time, and very much distant in condition, from his creation, I cannot see, how our A. can say in this sense, that, ‘‘ by God’s appointment, as soon as Adam was created, he was monarch of the world.’’ Secondly, were it true, that God’s actual donation ‘‘ appointed Adam monarch of the world, as soon as he was created,’’ yet the reason here given for it would not prove it ; but it would always be a false inference that God, by a positive donation, ‘‘ ap- pointed Adam monarch of the world, because by right of nature it was due to Adam to be governor of his posterity :’’ for having given him the right of government by nature, there was no need of a positive donation ; at least it will never be a proof of such a donation. § 17. On the other side, the matter will not be much mended, if we understand by God’s appointment the law of nature, (though it be a pretty harsh expression for it in this place) and by monarch of the world, sovereign ruler of mankind : for then the sentence under consideration must run thus : ‘‘ By the law of nature, as soon as Adam was created he was governor of mankind, for by right of nature it was due to Adam to be governor of his posterity ;’’ which amounts to this, he was governor by right of nature, because he was governor by right of nature. But supposing we should grant, that a man is by nature governor of his children, Adam could not hereby be monarch as soon as created : for this right of nature being founded in his being their father, how Adam could have a natural right to be governor, before he was a father, when by being a father only he had that right, is, methinks, hard to conceive, unless he would have him to be a father before he was a father, and have a title before he had it. § 18. To this foreseen objection, our A. answers very logically, ‘‘ He was governor in habit, and not in act :’’ a very pretty way of being a governor without government, a father without children, and a king without subjects. And thus sir Robert was an author before he writ his book ; not in act, it is true, but in habit ; for when he had once published it, it was due to him, by the right of nature, to be an author, as much as it was to Adam to be First Treatise 17 governor of his children, when he had begot them ; and if to be such a monarch of the world, an absolute monarch in habit, but not in act, will serve the turn, I should not much envy it to any of sir Robert’s friends, that he thought ﬁt graciously to bestow it upon ; though even this of act and habit, if it signiﬁed any thing but our A.’s skill in distinctions, be not to his purpose in this place. For the question is not here about Adam’s actual exercise of government, but actually having a title to be governor. Govern- ment, says our A. was ‘‘ due to Adam by the right of nature :’’ what is this right of nature ? A right fathers have over their children by begetting them ; generatione jus acquiritur parentibus in liberos, says our A. out of Grotius, de J. B. P. L. 2. C. 5. S. 1. The right then follows the begetting as arising from it ; so that, according to this way of reasoning or distinguishing of our A. Adam, as soon as he was created, had a title only in habit, and not in act, which in plain English is, he had actually no title at all. § 19. To speak less learnedly, and more intelligibly, one may say of Adam, he was in a possibility of being governor, since it was possible he might beget children, and thereby acquire that right of nature, be it what it will, to govern them, that accrues from thence : but what connexion has this with Adam’s creation, to make him say, that ‘‘ as soon as he was created, he was monarch of the world ?’’ For it may as well be said of Noah, that as soon as he was born he was monarch of the world, since he was in possibility (which in our A.’s sense is enough to make a monarch, ‘‘ a monarch in habit,’’) to outlive all mankind but his own posterity. What such necessary connexion there is betwixt Adam’s creation and his right to government, so that a ‘‘ natural freedom of mankind cannot be supposed without the denial of the creation of Adam,’’ I confess for my part I do not see ; nor how those words, ‘‘ by the appointment,’’ &c. Obs. 254, however explained, can be put together, to make any tolerable sense, at least to establish this position, with which they end, viz. ‘‘ Adam was a king from his creation ;’’ a king, says our author, ‘‘ not in act, but in habit,’’ i. e. actually no king at all. § 20. I fear I have tired my reader’s patience, by dwelling longer on this passage than the weightiness of any argument in it seems to require : but I have unavoidably been engaged in it by our author’s way of writing, who, huddling several suppositions together, and that in doubtful and general terms, makes such a medley and confusion, that it is impossible to show his mistakes, without examining the several senses wherein his words may be taken, and without seeing how, in any of these various meanings, they will consist together, and have any truth in them : for in this present passage before us, how can any one argue against this position of his, ‘‘ that Adam was a king from his creation,’’ unless one examine, whether the words, 18 First Treatise ‘‘ from his creation,’’ be to be taken, as they may, for the time of the com- mencement of his government, as the foregoing words import, ‘‘ as soon as he was created he was monarch ;’’ or, for the cause of it, as he says, p. 11, ‘‘ creation made man prince of his posterity ?’’ How farther can one judge of the truth of his being thus king, till one has examined whether king be to be taken, as the words in the beginning of this passage would persuade, on supposition of his private dominion, which was, by God’s positive grant, ‘‘ monarch of the world by appointment ;’’ or king on supposition of his fatherly power over his offspring, which was by nature, ‘‘ due by the right of nature ;’’ whether, I say, king be to be taken in both, or one only of these two senses, or in neither of them, but only this, that creation made him prince, in a way different from both the other ? For though this assertion, that ‘‘ Adam was king from his creation,’’ be true in no sense, yet it stands here as an evident conclusion drawn from the preceding words, though in truth it be but a bare assertion joined to other assertions of the same kind, which conﬁdently put together in words of undetermined and dubious meaning, look like a sort of arguing, when there is indeed neither proof nor con- nexion ; a way very familiar with our author ; of which having given the reader a taste here, I shall, as much as the argument will permit me, avoid touching on hereafter ; and should not have done it here, were it not to let the world see, how incoherences in matter, and suppositions without proofs, put handsomely together in good words and a plausible style, are apt to pass for strong reason and good sense, till they come to be looked into with attention. CHAPTER IV. Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty, by Donation, Gen. i. 28. § 21. Having at last got through the foregoing passage, where we have been so long detained, not by the force of arguments and opposition, but by the intricacy of the words, and the doubtfulness of the meaning ; let us go on to his next argument, for Adam’s sovereignty. Our author tells us in the words of Mr. Selden, that ‘‘ Adam by donation from God, Gen. i. 28, was made the general lord of all things, not without such a private dominion to himself, as without his grant did exclude his children. This determination of Mr. Selden, says our author, is consonant to the history of the Bible, and First Treatise 19 natural reason,’’ Obs. 210. And in his Pref. to his Observations on Aristotle, he says thus, ‘‘ The ﬁrst government in the world was monarchical in the father of all ﬂesh, Adam being commanded to multiply and people the earth, and to subdue it, and having dominion given him over all creatures, was thereby the monarch of the whole world. None of his posterity had any right to possess any thing, but by his grant or permission, or by succession from him. The earth, saith the Psalmist, hath he given to the children of men, which shows the title comes from fatherhood.’’ § 22. Before I examine this argument, and the text on which it is founded, it is necessary to desire the reader to observe, that our author, according to his usual method, begins in one sense, and concludes in another ; he begins here with Adam’s propriety, or private dominion, by donation ; and his conclusion is, ‘‘ which shows the title comes from fatherhood.’’ § 23. But let us see the argument. The words of the text are these : ‘‘ And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the ﬁsh of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth,’’ Gen. i. 28 ; from whence our author concludes, ‘‘ that Adam, having here dominion given him over all creatures, was thereby the mon- arch of the whole world :’’ whereby must be meant, that either this grant of God gave Adam property, or, as our author calls it, private dominion over the earth, and all inferior or irrational creatures, and so consequently that he was thereby monarch ; or, 2dly, that it gave him rule and dominion over all earthly creatures whatsoever, and thereby over his children ; and so he was monarch : for, as Mr. Selden has properly worded it, ‘‘ Adam was made general lord of all things,’’ one may very clearly understand him, that he means nothing to be granted to Adam here but property, and therefore he says not one word of Adam’s monarchy. But our author says, ‘‘ Adam was hereby monarch of the world,’’ which, properly speaking, signiﬁes sov- ereign ruler of all the men in the world ; and so Adam, by this grant, must be constituted such a ruler. If our author means otherwise, he might with much clearness have said, that ‘‘ Adam was hereby proprietor of the whole world.’’ But he begs your pardon in that point : clear distinct speaking not serving every where to his purpose, you must not expect it in him, as in Mr. Selden, or other such writers. § 24. In opposition, therefore, to our author’s doctrine, that ‘‘ Adam was monarch of the whole world,’’ founded on this place, I shall show, 1. That by this grant, Gen. i. 28, God gave no immediate power to Adam over men, over his children, over those of his own species ; and so he was not made ruler, or monarch, by this charter. 20 First Treatise 2. That by this grant God gave him not private dominion over the in- ferior creatures, but right in common with all mankind ; so neither was he monarch upon the account of the property here given him. § 25. 1. That this donation, Gen. i. 28, gave Adam no power over men, will appear if we consider the words of it : for since all positive grants con- vey no more than the express words they are made in will carry, let us see which of them here will comprehend mankind, or Adam’s posterity ; and those I imagine, if any, must be these, ‘‘ every living thing that moveth :’’ the words in Hebrew are oqmrh hyj, i. e. bestiam reptantem, of which words the Scripture itself is the best interpreter : God having created the ﬁshes and fowls the 5th day, the beginning of the 6th, he creates the irrational inhabi- tants of the dry land, which, ver. 24, are described in these words, ‘‘ Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind ; cattle and creep- ing things, and beasts of the earth, after his kind ; and ver. 2, and God made the beasts of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth on the earth after his kind :’’ here, in the creation of the brute inhabitants of the earth, he ﬁrst speaks of them all under one general name, of living creatures, and then afterwards divides them into three ranks, 1. Cattle, or such creatures as were or might be tame, and so be the private possession of particular men ; 2. hyj which, ver. 24, 25, in our Bible, is translated beasts, and by the Septuagint yhría, wild beasts, and is the same word, that here in our text, ver. 28, where we have this great charter to Adam, is translated living thing, and is also the same word used, Gen. ix. 2, where this grant is renewed to Noah, and there likewise translated beast. 3. The third rank were the creeping animals, which, ver. 24, 25, are com- prised under the word, oqmrj, the same that is used here, ver. 28, and is translated moving, but in the former verses creeping, and by the Septuagint in all these places, ĕwpetà, or reptiles ; from whence it appears, that the words which we translate here in God’s donation, ver. 28, ‘‘ living creatures moving,’’ are the same, which in the history of the creation, ver. 24, 25, signify two ranks of terrestrial creatures, viz. wild beasts and reptiles, and are so understood by the Septuagint. § 26. When God had made the irrational animals of the world, divided into three kinds, from the places of their habitation, viz. ﬁshes of the sea, fowls of the air, and living creatures of the earth, and these again into cattle, wild beasts, and reptiles ; he considers of making man, and the dominion he should have over the terrestrial world, ver. 26, and then he reckons up the inhabitants of these three kingdoms, but in the terrestrial leaves out the second rank hyj or wild beasts : but here, ver. 28, where he actually ex- ercises this design, and gives him this dominion, the text mentions the ﬁshes First Treatise 21 of the sea, and fowls of the air, and the terrestrial creatures in the words that signify the wild beasts and reptiles, though translated living thing that moveth, leaving out cattle. In both which places, though the word that signiﬁes wild beasts be omitted in one, and that which signiﬁes cattle in the other, yet, since God certainly executed in one place, what he declares he designed in the other, we cannot but understand the same in both places, and have here only an account how the terrestrial irrational animals, which were already created and reckoned up at their creation, in three distinct ranks of cattle, wild beasts, and reptiles, were here, ver. 28, actually put under the dominion of man, as they were designed, ver. 26 ; nor do these words contain in them the least appearance of any thing that can be wrested to signify God’s giving to one man dominion over another, to Adam over his posterity. § 27. And this further appears from Gen. ix. 2, where God renewing this charter to Noah and his sons, he gives them dominion over the fowls of the air, and the ﬁshes of the sea, and the terrestrial creatures, expressed by hyj qmrd wild beasts and reptiles, the same words that in the text before us, Gen. i. 28, are translated every moving thing that moveth on the earth, which by no means can comprehend man, the grant being made to Noah and his sons, all the men then living, and not to one part of men over another ; which is yet more evident from the very next words, ver. 3, where God gives every qmr ‘‘ every moving thing,’’ the very words used ch. i. 28, to them for food. By all which it is plain that God’s donation to Adam, ch. i. 28, and his designa- tion, ver. 26, and his grant again to Noah and his sons ; refer to, and contain in them, neither more nor less than the works of the creation the ﬁfth day, and the beginning of the sixth, as they are set down from the 20th to 26th ver. inclusively of the 1st ch. and so comprehend all the species of irrational animals of the terraqueous globe ; though all the words, whereby they are expressed in the history of their creation, are nowhere used in any of the following grants, but some of them omitted in one, and some in another. From whence I think it is past all doubt that man cannot be comprehended in this grant, nor any dominion over those of his own species be conveyed to Adam. All the terrestrial irrational creatures are enumerated at their creation, ver. 25, under the names, ‘‘ beasts of the earth, cattle, and creeping things;’’ but man, being not then created, was not contained under any of those names ; and therefore, whether we understand the Hebrew words right or no, they cannot be supposed to comprehend man, in the very same history, and the very next verses following, especially since that Hebrew word qmr which, if any in this donation to Adam, ch. i. 28, must compre- hend man, is so plainly used in contradistinction to him, as Gen. vi. 20. vii. 22 First Treatise 14, 21, 23. Gen. viii. 17, 19. And if God made all mankind slaves to Adam and his heirs, by giving Adam dominion over ‘‘ every living thing that moveth on the earth,’’ ch. i. 28, as our author would have it ; methinks sir Robert should have carried his monarchical power one step higher, and satisﬁed the world that princes might eat their subjects too, since God gave as full power to Noah and his heirs, ch. ix. 2, to eat ‘‘ every living thing that moveth,’’ as he did to Adam to have dominion over them ; the Hebrew word in both places being the same. § 28. David, who might be supposed to understand the donation of God in this text, and the right of kings too, as well as our author, in his comment on this place, as the learned and judicious Ainsworth calls it, in the 8th Psalm, ﬁnds here no such charter of monarchical power : his words are, ‘‘ Thou has made him, i. e. man, the son of man, a little lower than the angels ; thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands ; thou hast put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and the beasts of the ﬁeld, and fowls of the air, and ﬁsh of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea.’’ In which words, if any one can ﬁnd out, that there is meant any monarchical power of one man over another, but only the dominion of the whole species of mankind over the inferior species of creatures, he may, for aught I know, deserve to be one of sir Robert’s monarchs in habit, for the rareness of the discovery. And by this time, I hope it is evident, that he that gave ‘‘ dominion over every living thing that moveth on the earth,’’ gave Adam no monarchical power over those of his own species, which will yet appear more fully in the next thing I am to show. § 29. 2. Whatever God gave by the words of this grant, Gen. i. 28, it was not to Adam in particular, exclusive of all other men : whatever dominion he had thereby, it was not a private dominion, but a dominion in common with the rest of mankind. That this donation was not made in particular to Adam, appears evidently from the words of the text, it being made to more than one ; for it was spoken in the plural number, God blessed them, and said unto them, have dominion. God says unto Adam and Eve, have dominion ; thereby, says our author, ‘‘ Adam was monarch of the world :’’ but the grant being to them, i. e. spoken to Eve also, as many interpreters think with reason, that these words were not spoken till Adam had his wife, must not she thereby be lady, as well as he lord of the world ? If it be said that Eve was subjected to Adam, it seems she was not so subjected to him as to hinder her dominion over the creatures, or property in them : for shall we say that God ever made a joint grant to two, and one only was to have the beneﬁt of it ? § 30. But perhaps it will be said Eve was not made till afterward : grant it First Treatise 23 so, what advantage will our author get by it ? The text will be only the more directly against him, and show that God, in this donation, gave the world to mankind in common, and not to Adam in particular. The word them in the text must include the species of man, for it is certain them can by no means signify Adam alone. In the 26th verse, where God declares his intention to give this dominion, it is plain he meant that he would make a species of creatures that should have dominion over the other species of this terrestrial globe. The words are, ‘‘ And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the ﬁsh,’’ &c. They then were to have dominion. Who ? even those who were to have the image of God, the individuals of that species of man that he was going to make ; for that them should signify Adam singly, exclusive of the rest that should be in the world with him, is against both Scripture and all reason : and it cannot possibly be made sense, if man in the former part of the verse do not signify the same with them in the latter ; only man there, as is usual, is taken for the species, and them the individuals of that species : and we have a rea- son in the very text. God makes him ‘‘ in his own image, after his own likeness ; makes him an intellectual creature, and so capable of dominion :’’ for whereinsoever else the image of God consisted, the intellectual nature was certainly a part of it, and belonged to the whole species, and enabled them to have dominion over the inferior creatures ; and therefore David says, in the 8th Psalm above cited, ‘‘ Thou hast made him little lower than the angels; thou hast made him to have dominion.’’ It is not of Adam king David speaks here ; for, verse 4, it is plain it is of man, and the son of man, of the species of mankind. § 31. And that this grant spoken to Adam was made to him, and the whole species of man, is clear from our author’s own proof out of the Psalmist. ‘‘ The earth, saith the Psalmist, hath he given to the children of men, which shows the title comes from fatherhood.’’ These are sir Robert’s words in the preface before cited, and a strange inference it is he makes : ‘‘ God hath given the earth to the children of men, ergo the title comes from fatherhood.’’ It is pity the propriety of the Hebrew tongue had not used fathers of men, instead of children of men, to express mankind : then indeed our author might have had the countenance of the sounds of the words to have placed the title in the fatherhood. But to conclude, that the fatherhood had the right to the earth, because God gave it to the children of men, is a way of arguing peculiar to our author : and a man must have a great mind to go contrary to the sound as well as sense of the words before he could light on it. But the sense is yet harder, and more remote from our author’s purpose : for as it stands in his preface it is to prove Adam’s being monarch, 24 First Treatise and his reasoning is thus, ‘‘ God gave the earth to the children of men, ergo Adam was monarch of the world.’’ I defy any man to make a more pleasant conclusion than this, which cannot be excused from the most obvious ab- surdity, till it can be shown that by children of men, he who had no father, Adam alone is signiﬁed ; but whatever our author does, the Scripture speaks not nonsense. § 32. To maintain this property and private dominion of Adam, our author labours in the following page to destroy the community granted to Noah and his sons, in that parallel place, Gen. ix. 1, 2, 3 ; and he endeavours to do it two ways. 1. Sir Robert would persuade us, against the express words of the Scrip- ture, that what was here granted to Noah, was not granted to his sons in common with him. His words are, ‘‘ As for the general community between Noah and his sons, which Mr. Selden will have to be granted to them, Gen. ix. 2, the text doth not warrant it.’’ What warrant our author would have, when the plain express words of Scripture, not capable of another meaning, will not satisfy him, who pretends to build wholly on Scripture, is not easy to imagine. The text says, ‘‘ God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, i. e. as our author would have it, unto him : for, saith he, although the sons are there mentioned with Noah in the blessing, yet it may best be understood, with a subordination or benediction in succession,’’ O. 211. That indeed is best for our author to be understood, which best serves to his purpose ; but that truly may best be understood by any body else, which best agrees with the plain construction of the words, and arises from the obvious meaning of the place ; and then with subordination and in succession will not be best understood in a grant of God, where he himself put them not, nor mentions any such limitation. But yet our author has reasons why it may best be understood so. ‘‘ The blessing,’’ says he in the following words, ‘‘might truly be fulﬁlled, if the sons, either under or after their father, enjoyed a private dominion,’’ O. 211 ; which is to say, that a grant, whose express words give a joint title in present (for the text says, into your hands they are delivered) may best be understood with a subordination, or in succession ; because it is possible that in subordination, or in succession, it may be enjoyed. Which is all one as to say, that a grant of any thing in present possession may best be understood of reversion ; because it is possi- ble one may live to enjoy it in reversion. If the grant be indeed to a father and to his sons after him, who is so kind as to let his children enjoy it presently in common with him, one may truly say, as to the event one will be as good as the other ; but it can never be true that what the express words grant in possession, and in common, may best be understood to be in First Treatise 25 reversion. The sum of all his reasoning amounts to this : God did not give to the sons of Noah the world in common with their father, because it was possible they might enjoy it under or after him. A very good sort of argu- ment against an express text of Scripture : but God must not be believed, though he speaks it himself, when he says he does any thing which will not consist with sir Robert’s hypothesis. § 33. For it is plain, however he would exclude them, that part of this benediction, as he would have it in succession, must needs be meant to the sons, and not to Noah himself at all : ‘‘ Be fruitful and multiple, and re- plenish the earth,’’ says God in this blessing. This part of the benediction, as appears by the sequel, concerned not Noah himself at all : for we read not of any children he had after the ﬂood ; and in the following chapter, where his posterity is reckoned up, there is no mention of any ; and so this benediction in succession was not to take place till 350 years after : and to save our author’s imaginary monarchy, the peopling of the world must be deferred 350 years ; for this part of the benediction cannot be understood with subor- dination, unless our author will say that they must ask leave of their father Noah to lie with their wives. But in this one point our author is constant to himself in all his discourses ; he takes care there should be monarchs in the world, but very little that there should be people ; and indeed his way of government is not the way to people the world : for how much absolute monarchy helps to fulﬁl this great and primary blessing of God Almighty, ‘‘ Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth,’’ which contains in it the improvement too of arts and sciences, and the conveniences of life ; may be seen in those large and rich countries which are happy under the Turkish government, where are not now to be found one-third, nay in many, if not most parts of them, one-thirtieth, perhaps I might say not one-hundredth of the people, that were formerly, as will easily appear to any one, who will compare the accounts we have of it at this time with ancient history. But this by the by. § 34. The other parts of this benediction or grant are so expressed, that they must needs be understood to belong equally to them all ; as much to Noah’s sons as to Noah himself, and not to his sons with a subordination, or in succession. ‘‘ The fear of you, and the dread of you, says God, shall be upon every beast,’’ &c. Will any body but our author say that the creatures feared and stood in awe of Noah only, and not of his sons without his leave, or till after his death ? And the following words, ‘‘ into your hands they are delivered,’’ are they to be understood as our author says, if your father please, or they shall be delivered into your hands hereafter ? If this be to argue from Scripture, I know not what may not be proved by it ; and I can 26 First Treatise scarce see how much this differs from that ﬁction and fancy, or how much a surer foundation it will prove than the opinions of philosophers and poets, which our author so much condemns in his preface. § 35. But our author goes on to prove, that ‘‘ it may best be understood with a subordination, or a benediction in succession ; for, says he, it is not probable that the private dominion which God gave to Adam, and by his donation, assignation, or cession to his children, was abrogated, and a community of all things instituted between Noah and his sons—Noah was left the sole heir of the world ; why should it be thought that God would disinherit him of his birth right, and make him of all men in the world the only tenant in common with his children ?’’ O. 211. § 36. The prejudices of our own ill-grounded opinions, however by us called probable, cannot authorize us to understand Scripture contrary to the direct and plain meaning of the words. I grant it is not probable that Adam’s private dominion was here abrogated ; because it is more than improbable (for it will never be proved) that Adam had any such private dominion : and since parallel places of Scripture are most probable to make us know how they may be best understood, there needs but the comparing this blessing here to Noah and his sons, after the ﬂood, with that to Adam after the creation, Gen. i. 28, to assure any one that God gave Adam no such private dominion. It is probable, I confess, that Noah should have the same title, the same property and dominion after the ﬂood, that Adam had before it : but since private dominion cannot consist with the blessing and grant God gave to him and his sons in common, it is a sufﬁcient reason to conclude that Adam had none, especially since, in the donation made to him, there are no words that express it, or do in the least favour it ; and then let my reader judge whether it may best be understood, when in the one place there is not one word for it, not to say what has been above proved, that the text itself proves the contrary ; and in the other, the words and sense are directly against it. § 37. But our author says, ‘‘ Noah was the sole heir of the world ; why should it be thought that God would disinherit him of his birth right ?’’ Heir indeed, in England, signiﬁes the eldest son, who is by the law of England to have all his father’s land ; but where God ever appointed any such heir of the world, our author would have done well to have showed us ; and how God disinherited him of his birth right, or what harm was done him if God gave his sons a right to make use of a part of the earth for support of themselves and families, when the whole was not only more than Noah himself, but inﬁnitely more than they all could make use of, and the possessions of one could not at all prejudice, or, as to any use, straiten that of the other. First Treatise 27 § 38. Our author probably foreseeing he might not be very successful in persuading people out of their senses, and, say what he could, men would be apt to believe the plain words of Scripture, and think, as they saw, that the grant was spoken to Noah and his sons jointly ; he endeavours to insinuate, as if this grant to Noah conveyed no property, no dominion ; because ‘‘ sub- duing the earth and dominion over the creatures are therein omitted, nor the earth once named.’’ And therefore, says he, ‘‘ there is a considerable differ- ence between these two texts ; the ﬁrst blessing gave Adam a dominion over the earth and all creatures ; the latter allows Noah liberty to use the living creatures for food : here is no alteration or diminishing of his title to a property of all things, but an enlargement only of his commons,’’ O. 211. So that, in our author’s sense, all that was said here to Noah and his sons, gave them no dominion, no property, but only enlarged the commons ; their commons, I should say, since God says, ‘‘ to you are they given ;’’ though our author says his ; for as to Noah’s sons, they, it seems, by sir Robert’s appointment, during their father’s lifetime, were to keep fasting-days. § 39. Any one but our author would be mightily suspected to be blinded with prejudice, that in all this blessing to Noah and his sons, could see nothing but only an enlargement of commons : for as to dominion, which our author thinks omitted, ‘‘ the fear of you, and the dread of you, says God, shall be upon every beast,’’ which I suppose expresses the dominion, or superiority, was designed man over the living creatures, as fully as may be ; for in that fear and dread seems chieﬂy to consist what was given to Adam over the inferior animals, who, as absolute a monarch as he was, could not make bold with a lark or rabbit to satisfy his hunger, and had the herbs but in common with the beasts, as is plain from Gen. i. 2, 9, and 30. In the next place, it is manifest that in this blessing to Noah and his sons, property is not only given in clear words, but in a larger extent than it was to Adam. ‘‘ Into your hands they are given,’’ says God to Noah and his sons ; which words, if they give not property, nay, property in possession, it will be hard to ﬁnd words that can ; since there is not a way to express a man’s being possessed of any thing more natural, nor more certain, than to say, it is delivered into his hands. And ver. 3, to show, that they had then given them the utmost property man is capable of, which is to have a right to destroy any thing by using it : ‘‘ Every moving thing that liveth, saith God, shall be meat for you ;’’ which was not allowed to Adam in his charter. This our author calls ‘‘ a liberty of using them for food, and also an enlargement of commons, but no alteration of property,’’ O. 211. What other property man can have in the creatures, but the ‘‘ liberty of using them,’’ is hard to be understood : so that if the ﬁrst blessing, as our author says, gave Adam ‘‘ dominion over the 28 First Treatise creatures, and the blessing to Noah and his sons gave them ‘‘ such a liberty to use them’’ as Adam had not ; it must needs give them something that Adam with all his sovereignty wanted, something that one would be apt to take for a greater property ; for certainly he has no absolute dominion over even the brutal part of the creatures, and the property he has in them is very narrow and scanty, who cannot make that use of them which is permitted to another. Should any one, who is absolute lord of a country, have bidden our author subdue the earth, and given him dominion over the creatures in it, but not have permitted him to have taken a kid or a lamb out of the ﬂock to satisfy his hunger, I guess he would scarce have thought himself lord or proprietor of that land, or the cattle on it ; but would have found the differ- ence between ‘‘ having dominion,’’ which a shepherd may have, and having full property as an owner. So that, had it been his own case, sir Robert, I believe, would have thought here was an alteration, nay an enlarging of property ; and that Noah and his children had by this grant not only property given them, but such a property given them in the creatures, as Adam had not : for however, in respect of one another, men may be allowed to have propriety in their distinct portions of the creatures ; yet in respect of God the maker of heaven and earth, who is sole lord and proprietor of the whole world, man’s propriety in the creatures is nothing but that ‘‘ liberty to use them,’’ which God has permitted ; and so man’s property may be altered and enlarged, as we see it here, after the ﬂood, when other uses of them are allowed, which before were not. From all which I suppose it is clear, that neither Adam, nor Noah, had any ‘‘ private dominion,’’ any property in the creatures, exclusive of his posterity, as they should successively grow up into need of them, and come to be able to make use of them. § 40. Thus we have examined our author’s argument for Adam’s mon- archy, founded on the blessing pronounced, Gen. i. 28. Wherein I think it is impossible for any sober reader to ﬁnd any other but the setting of mankind above the other kinds of creatures in this habitable earth of ours. It is nothing but the giving to man, the whole species of man, as the chief inhabitant, who is the image of his Maker, the dominion over the other creatures. This lies so obvious in the plain words, that any one but our author would have thought it necessary to have shown, how these words, that seemed to say the quite contrary, gave ‘‘ Adam monarchical absolute power’’ over other men, or the sole property in all the creatures ; and me- thinks in a business of this moment, and that whereon he builds all that follows, he should have done something more than barely cite words, which apparently make against him ; for I confess, I cannot see any thing in them tending to Adam’s monarchy, or private dominion, but quite the contrary. First Treatise 29 And I the less deplore the dulness of my apprehension herein, since I ﬁnd the apostle seems to have as little notion of any such ‘‘ private dominion of Adam’’ as I, when he says, ‘‘ God give us all things richly to enjoy ;’’ which he could not do, if it were all given away already to monarch Adam, and the monarchs his heirs and successors. To conclude, this text is so far from proving Adam sole proprietor, that, on the contrary, it is a conﬁrmation of the original community of all things amongst the sons of men, which ap- pearing from this donation of God, as well as other places of Scripture, the sovereignty of Adam, built upon his ‘‘ private dominion,’’ must fall, not having any foundation to support it. § 41. But yet, if after all any one will needs have it so, that by this donation of God Adam was made sole proprietor of the whole earth, what will this be to his sovereignty ? and how will it appear, that propriety in land gives a man power over the life of another ? or how will the possession even of the whole earth give any one a sovereign arbitrary authority over the persons of men ? The most specious thing to be said is, that he that is proprietor of the whole world, may deny all the rest of mankind food, and so at his pleasure starve them, if they will not acknowledge his sovereignty, and obey his will. If this were true, it would be a good argument to prove, that there never was any such property, that God never gave any such private dominion ; since it is more reasonable to think, that God, who bid mankind increase and multiply, should rather himself give them all a right to make use of the food and raiment, and other conveniences of life, the materials whereof he had so plentifully provided for them ; than to make them depend upon the will of a man for their subsistence, who should have power to destroy them all when he pleased, and who, being no better than other men, was in succession likelier, by want and the dependence of a scanty fortune, to tie them to hard service, than by liberal allowance of the conveniencies of life to promote the great design of God, ‘‘ increase and multiply:’’ he that doubts this, let him look into the absolute monarchies of the world, and see what becomes of the conveniencies of life, and the multitudes of people. § 42. But we know God hath not left one man so to the mercy of another, that he may starve him if he please : God, the Lord and Father of all, has given no one of his children such a property in his peculiar portion of the things of this world, but that he has given his needy brother a right to the surplusage of his goods ; so that it cannot justly be denied him, when his pressing wants call for it : and therefore no man could ever have a just power over the life of another by right of property in land or possessions ; since it would always be a sin, in any man of estate, to let his brother perish 30 First Treatise for want of affording him relief out of his plenty. As justice gives every man a title to the product of his honest industry, and the fair acquisitions of his ancestors descended to him ; so charity gives every man a title to so much out of another’s plenty as will keep him from extreme want, where he has no means to subsist otherwise : and a man can no more justly make use of another’s necessity to force him to become his vassal, by withholding that relief God requires him to afford to the wants of his brother, than he that has more strength can seize upon a weaker, master him to his obedience, and with a dagger at his throat offer him death or slavery. § 43. Should any one make so perverse an use of God’s blessings poured on him with a liberal hand ; should any one be cruel and uncharitable to that extremity ; yet all this would not prove that propriety in land, even in this case, gave any authority over the persons of men, but only that compact might ; since the authority of the rich proprietor, and the subjection of the needy beggar, began not from the possession of the lord, but the consent of the poor man, who preferred being his subject to starving. And the man he thus submits to, can pretend to no more power over him than he has con- sented to, upon compact. Upon this ground a man’s having his stores ﬁlled in a time of scarcity, having money in his pocket, being in a vessel at sea, being able to swim, &c. may as well be the foundation of rule and domin- ion, as being possessor of all the land in the world : any of these being sufﬁcient to enable me to save a man’s life, who would

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