Cain and Seth, have a paternal power over their children at the same time; so that they are at the same time absolute lords, and yet vassals and slaves; Adam has all the authority, as “grandfather of the people,” and they have a part of it, as fathers of a part of them; he is absolute over them, and their posterity, by having begotten them, and yet they are absolute over their children by the same title. “No, says our author, Adam’s children under him had power over their own children, but still with subordination to the first parent.” A good distinction that sounds well, and it is pity it signifies nothing, nor can be reconciled with our author’s words. I readily grant that supposing Adam’s absolute power over his posterity, any of his children might have from him a delegated, and so a subordinate power over a part, or all the rest: but that cannot be the power our author speaks of here; it is not a power by grant and commission, but the natural paternal power, he supposes a father to have over his children. For 1. he says, “As Adam was lord of his children, so his children under him had a power over their own children”: they were then lords over their own children after the same manner, and by the same title that Adam was, i.e.