VI

its constitution: and it is so hard to imagine the rational soul should presently inhabit the yet unformed embryo, as soon as the father has done his part in the act of generation, that if it must be supposed to derive anything from the parents, it must certainly owe most to the mother. But be that as it will, the mother cannot be denied an equal share in begetting of the child, and so the absolute authority of the father will not arise from hence. Our author indeed is of another mind; for he says, “we know that God at the creation gave the sovereignty to the man over the woman, as being the nobler and principal agent in generation,” O. 172. I remember not this in my bible; and when the place is brought where God at the creation gave the sovereignty to man over the woman, and that for this reason, because “he is the nobler and principal agent in generation,” it will be time enough to consider, and answer it. But it is no new thing for our author to tell us his own fancies for certain and divine truths, though there be often a great deal of difference between his and divine revelations; for God in the scripture says, “his father and his mother that begot him.”