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author and publisher 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 fuch a noife at its coming abroad, and cannot but confefs my felf mightily furprised, that in a book, which was to provide chains for all mankind, I should find nothing but a rope of fand, useful perhaps to fuch, whose skill and bufinefs it is to raise a duft, 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 fo much fenfe about them, as to confider, 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 fpeaking fo freely of a man, who is the great champion of abfolute power, and the idol of those who worship it; I beseech him to make this fmall allowance for once, to one, who, even after the reading of Sir Robert's book, cannot but think himfelf, as the laws allow him, a freeman: and I know no fault it is to do so, unless any one better fkilled in the fate of it, than I, should have it revealed to him, that this treatise, which has lain dormant fo long, was, when it appeared in the world, to carry, by ftrength of its arguments, all liberty out of it, and that

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from thenceforth our author's fhort model was to be the pattern in the mount, and the perfect ftandard of politics for the future. His fyftem lies in a little compafs, it is no more but this,"

That all government is abfolute monarchy.
And the ground he builds on, is this,
That no man is born free.

S. 3. a generation of men 8.3. In this laft: has fprung up amongst us, that would flatter princes with an opinion, that they have a divine right to abfolute power, let the laws by which they are conftituted, and are to govern, and the conditions under which they enter upon their authority, be what they will, and their engagements to obferve them never fo well ratified by folemn 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, expofed all fubjects to the utmost mifery of tyranny and oppreffion, but have alfo unfettled the titles, and fhaken the thrones of princes: (for they too, by these mens fyftem, except only one, are all born flaves, and by divine right are fubjects to Adam's right heir;) as if they had defigned to make war upon all government, and fubvert the very foundations of human fociety, to ferve their prefent turn.

§. 4. However we must believe them upon their own bare words, when they tell us, we

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are all born flaves, and we must continue so, there is no remedy for it; life and thraldom we enter'd into together, and can never be quit of the one, till we part with the other. Scripture or reafon I am fure do not any where fay fo, notwithstanding the noife of divine right, as if divine authority hath fubjected 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 feems 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 afferted monarchy to be jure divino. And he confeffes, Patr. p. 4. That Heyward, Blackwood, Barclay, and others, that have bravely vindicated the right of kings in moft points, never thought of this, but with one confent admitted the natural liberty and equality of mankind.

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§. 5. By whom this doctrine came at first to be broached, and brought in fashion amongst us, and what fad effects it gave rife to, I leave to hiftorians to relate, or to the memory of thofe, who were contemporaries with Sibthorp and Manwering, to recollect. My bufinefs at prefent is only to confider what Sir Robert Filmer, who is allowed to have carried this argument fartheft, and is fuppofed to have brought it to perfection, has faid in it;

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for from him every one, who would be as fashionable as French was at court, has learned, and runs away with this short fyftem 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 abfolute, and by divine right; for flaves could never have a right to compact or confent. Adam was an abfolute monarch, and fo are all princes ever fince.

CHA P. II.

Of Paternal and Regal Power.

§. 6. that men are not naturally free. This S

IR Robert Filmer's great pofition is,

is the foundation on which his abfolute monarchy ftands, and from which it erects itself to an height, that its power is above every power, caput inter nubila, fo high above all earthly and human things, that thought can fcarce reach it; that promifes and oaths, which tye 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 contrivance, and the confent of men ('AvgwTivn arious) making use of their reason to unite together into fociety. To prove this grand pofition of his, he tells us, p. 12. Men

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are born in fubjection to their parents, and
therefore cannot be free. And this autho-
rity of parents, he calls rayal authority, p.
12, 14 Fatherly authority, right of father-
bood, p. 12, 2018 One would have thought
he would, in the beginning of such a work
as this, on which was to depend the autho-
rity of princes, and the obedience of fub-
jects, have told us exprefly, what
at fa-
therly authority is, have defined it, though
not limited it, because in fome other treatifes
of his he tells us, it is unlimited, and un-
limitable; he fhould at least have given us
fuch an account of it, that we might have
had an entire notion of this fatherhood, or
fatherly authority, whenever it came in our
way in his writings: this I expected to have
found in the firft chapter of his Patriarcha.
But instead thereof, having, 1. en paffant,
made his obeyfance to the arcana imperii,
p. 5. 2. made his compliment to the rights
and liberties of this, or any other nation,
p. 6. which he is going prefently to null and
destroy; and, 3. made his leg to thofe learned.
men, who did not fee fo far into the matter
as himself, p. 7. he comes to fall on Bel
larmine,

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 make any law of prescription against them. Obfervations, 158.

The fcripture teaches, that fupreme power was originally the father, without any limitation. Obfervations, 245

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