Anyone but our author would be mightily suspected to be blinded with prejudice, that in all this blessing to Noah and his sons, could see nothing but only an enlargement of commons; for as to dominion, which our author thinks omitted, “the fear of you, and the dread of you, says God, shall be upon every beast,” which I suppose expresses the dominion, or superiority, was designed man over the living creatures, as fully as may be: for in that fear and dread seems chiefly to consist what was given to Adam over the inferior animals, who, as absolute a monarch as he was, could not make bold with a lark or rabbit to satisfy his hunger, and had the herbs but in common with the beasts, as is plain from Gen. 1:2, 9, and 30. In the next place, it is manifest that in this blessing to Noah and his sons, property is not only given in clear words, but in a larger extent than it was to Adam. “Into your hands they are given,” says God to Noah and his sons; which words, if they give not property, nay, property in possession, it will be hard to find words that can; since there is not a way to express a man’s being possessed of anything more natural, nor more certain, than to say, it is delivered into his hands. And