In propriety of speech, (and certainly propriety of speech is necessary in a discourse of this nature) eldest parents signifies either the eldest men and women that have had children, or those who have longest had issue; and then our author’s assertion will be, that those fathers and mothers who have been longest in the world, or longest fruitful, have by divine institution a right to civil power. If there be any absurdity in this, our author must answer for it: and if his meaning be different from my explication, he is to be blamed, that he would not speak it plainly. This I am sure parents cannot signify heirs male, nor eldest parents an infant child: who yet may sometimes be the true heir; if there can be but one. And we are hereby still as much at a loss, who civil power belongs to, notwithstanding this “assignment by divine institution,” as if there had been no such assignment at all, or our author had said nothing of it. This of eldest parents leaving us more in the dark, who by divine institution has a right to civil power, than those who never heard anything at all of heir or descent, of which our author is so full.