Would it not be an argument just like this for monarchical government to say, when any monarchy was shattered to pieces, and divided amongst revolted subjects, that God was careful to preserve monarchical power, by rending a settled empire into a multitude of little governments? If anyone will say, that what happens in providence to be preserved, God is careful to preserve as a thing therefore to be esteemed by men as necessary or useful; it is a peculiar propriety of speech, which everyone will not think fit to imitate: but this I am sure is impossible to be either proper or true speaking, that Shem, for example, (for he was then alive) should have fatherly authority, or sovereignty by right of fatherhood, over that one people at Babel, and that the next moment, Shem yet living, seventy-two others should have fatherly authority, or sovereignty by right of fatherhood, over the same people, divided into so many distinct governments: either these seventy-two fathers actually were rulers, just before the confusion, and then they were not one people, but that God himself says they were; or else they were a commonwealth, and then where was monarchy? or else these seventy-two fathers had fatherly authority, but knew it not. Strange!