should disinherit Shem of his birthright, and divide the world betwixt him and his brethren; so that his birthright, when our author pleases, must, and when he pleases must not, be sacred and inviolable.
If Noah did divide the world between his sons, and his assignment of dominions to them were good, there is an end of divine institution: all our author’s discourse of Adam’s heir, with whatsoever he builds on it, is quite out of doors; the natural power of kings falls to the ground; and then “the form of the power governing, and the person having that power, will not be (as he says they are, O. 254,) the ordinance of God, but they will be ordinances of man”: for if the right of the heir be the ordinance of God, a divine right; no man, father or not father, can alter it: if it be not a divine right, it is only human, depending on the will of man: and so where human institution gives it not, the firstborn has no right at all above his brethren; and men may put government into what hands, and under what form they please.
He goes on, “most of the civilest nations of the earth labour to fetch their original from some of the sons or nephews of Noah,” p. 14. How many do most of the civilest nations amount to? and who are they? I fear the Chinese, a very great and civil people, as well as several other people of the East, West, North, and South, trouble