XI

“The issue,” says our author, “is comprehended sufficiently in the person of the father, although the father only was named in the grant”: and yet God, when he gave the land of Canaan to Abraham, Gen. 13:15, thought fit to put his seed into the grant too: so the priesthood was given to Aaron and his seed; and the crown God gave not only to David, but his seed also: and however our author assures us that “God intends, that the issue should have the benefit of it, when he chooses any person to be king,” yet we see that the kingdom which he gave to Saul without mentioning his seed after him, never came to any of his issue: and why, when God chose a person to be king, he should intend, that his issue should have the benefit of it, more than when he chose one to be judge in Israel, I would fain know a reason; or why does a grant of fatherly authority to a king more comprehend the issue, than when a like grant is made to a judge? Is paternal authority by right to descend to the issue of one, and not of the other? There will need some reason to be shown of this difference more than the name, when the thing given is the