an elder brother has so over his brethren, remains to be proved: God or nature has not anywhere, that I know, placed such jurisdiction in the firstborn; nor can reason find any such natural superiority amongst brethren. The law of Moses gave a double portion of the goods and possessions to the eldest: but we find not anywhere that naturally or by God’s institution, superiority or dominion belonged to him; and the instances there brought by our author are but slender proofs of a right to civil power and dominion in the firstborn, and do rather show the contrary.
His words are in the forecited place: “And therefore we find God told Cain of his brother Abel, his desire shall be subject unto thee, and thou shalt rule over him.” To which I answer,
- These words of God to Cain are by many interpreters, with great reason, understood in a quite different sense than what our author uses them in. - Whatever was meant by them, it could not be, that Cain, as elder, had a natural dominion over Abel; for the words are conditional. “If thou dost well”; and so personal to Cain: and whatever was signified by them, did depend on his carriage, and not follow his birthright; and therefore could by no means be an establishment of dominion in the firstborn in general; for before this Abel had his “distinct territories by right of private dominion,” as our author himself confesses, O. 210. which he could not have had to the prejudice of the heir’s title, “if by divine institution” Cain as heir were to inherit all his father’s dominion. - If this were intended by God as the charter of primogeniture, and the grant of dominion to the elder brothers in general as such, by right of inheritance, we might expect it should have included all his brethren; for we may well suppose, Adam, from whom the world was to be peopled, had by this time, that these were grown up to be men, more sons than these two: whereas