death was sovereign? Cain, says our author, p. 29. By what title? “As heir; for heirs to progenitors, who were natural parents of their people, are not only lords of their own children, but also of their brethren,” says our author, p. 19. What was Cain heir to? Not the entire possessions, not all that which Adam had private dominion in; for our author allows that Abel, by a title derived from his father, “had his distinct territory for pasture by right of private dominion.” What then Abel had by private dominion, was exempt from Cain’s dominion; for he could not have private dominion over that which was under the private dominion of another; and therefore his sovereignty over his brother is gone with this private dominion, and so there are presently two sovereigns, and his imaginary title of fatherhood is out of doors, and Cain is no prince over his brother: or else, if Cain retain his sovereignty over Abel, notwithstanding his private dominion, it will follow, that the “first grounds and principles of government” have nothing to do with property, whatever our author says to the contrary. It is true, Abel did not outlive his father Adam; but that makes nothing to the argument, which will hold good against Sir Robert in Abel’s issue, or in Seth, or any of the posterity of Adam, not descended from Cain.
The same inconvenience he runs into about the three sons of Noah, who, as he says, p. 13, “had the whole world divided amongst them by their father.” I ask then, in which of the three we shall find “the establishment of regal power” after Noah’s death? If in all three, as our author there seems to say, then it will follow, that regal power is founded in property of land, and follows private dominion, and not in paternal power, or natural dominion; and so there is an end of paternal power as the fountain of regal authority, and the so much magnified fatherhood quite vanishes. If the regal power descended to Shem as eldest, and heir to his father, then “Noah’s division of the world by lot to his sons, or his ten years sailing about the Mediterranean to appoint each son his part,” which our author tells of, p. 15, was labour lost; his division of the world to them, was to ill, or to no purpose: for his grant to Cham and Japhet