Page:Two Treatises of Government.djvu/59

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Of Government.
45

Noah, had any private dominion, any property in the creatures, excluſive of his poſterity, as they ſhould ſucceſſively grow up into need of them, and come to be able to make uſe of them.

§. 40. Thus we have.examined our author's argument for Adam's monarchy, founded on the bleſſing pronounced, i.Gen. 28. Wherein I think it is impoſſible for any ſober reader, to find any other but the ſetting of mankind above the other kinds of creatures, in this habitable earth of ours. It is nothing but the giving to man, the whole ſpecies of man, as the chief inhabitant, who is the image of his Maker, the dominion over the other creatures. This lies ſo obvious in the plain words, that any one, but our author, would have thought it neceſſary to have ſhewn, how theſe words, that ſeemed to ſay the quite contrary, gave Adam monarchical abſolute power over other men, or the ſole property in all the creatures ; and methinks in a buſineſs of this moment, and that whereon he builds all that follows, he ſhould have done ſomething more than barely cite words, which apparently make againſt him ; for I confeſs, I cannot ſee any thing in them, tending to Adam's monarchy, or private dominion, but quite the contrary. And I the leſs deplore the dulneſs of my apprehenſion herein, ſince I find the apoſtle ſeems to have as little notion of any ſuch private dominion of Adam

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