Page:Two Treatises of Government.djvu/25

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Of Government.
11

ſervations, p. 155. Law is nothing elſe but the will of him that hath the power of the ſupreme father, Obſervations, p. 223. It was God's ordinance that the ſupremacy ſhould be unlimited in Adam, and as large as all the acts of his will; and as in him ſo in all others that have ſupreme power, Obſervations, p. 245.

§. 9. I have been fain to trouble my reader with theſe ſeveral quotations in our author's own words, that in them might be ſeen his own deſcription of his fatherly authority, as it lies ſcattered up and down in his writings, which he ſuppoſes was firſt veſted in Adam, and by right belongs to all princes ever ſince. This fatherly authority then, or right of fatherhood, in our author's ſenſe, is a divine unalterable right of ſovereignty, whereby a father or a prince hath an abſolute, arbitrary, unlimited, and unlimitable power over the lives, liberties, and eſtates of his children and ſubjects; ſo that he may take or alienate their eſtates, fell, caſtrate, or uſe their perſons as he pleaſes, they being all his ſlaves, and he lord or proprietor of every thing, and his unbounded will their law.

§. 10. Our author having placed ſuch a mighty power in Adam, and upon that ſuppoſition founded all government, and all power of princes, it is reaſonable to expect, that he ſhould have proved this with arguments clear and evident, ſuitable to the weightineſs of

the