The prejudices of our own ill-grounded opinions, however by us called probable, cannot authorize us to understand scripture contrary to the direct and plain meaning of the words. I grant it is not probable that Adam’s private dominion was here abrogated; because it is more than improbable, (for it will never be proved) that Adam had any such private dominion; and since parallel places of scripture are most probable to make us know how they may be best understood, there needs but the comparing this blessing here to Noah and his sons, after the flood, with that to Adam after the creation, Gen. 1:28, to assure anyone that God gave Adam no such private dominion. It is probable, I confess, that Noah should have the same title, the same property and dominion after the flood, that Adam had before it: but since private dominion cannot consist with the blessing and grant God gave to him and his sons in common, it is a sufficient reason to conclude, that Adam had none, especially since in the donation made to him, there are no words that express it, or do in the least favour it; and then let my reader judge whether it may best be understood, when in the one place there is not one word for it, not to say what has been above proved, that the text itself proves the contrary; and in the other, the words and sense are directly against it.
But our author says, “Noah was the sole heir of the world; why should it be thought that God would disinherit him of his birthright?” Heir indeed, in England, signifies the eldest son, who is by the laws of England to have all his father’s lands; but where God ever appointed any such heir of the world, our author would have done well to have showed us; and how God disinherited him of his birthright, or what harm was done him if God gave his sons a right to make use of a part of the earth for support of themselves and families, when the whole was not only more than Noah himself, but infinitely more than they all could make use of, and the possessions of one could not at all prejudice, or, as to any use, straiten that of the other.