Page:A discourse upon the origin and foundation of the inequality among mankind (IA discourseuponori00rous).pdf/75

 us know what they meant by the Word belong; others, without further Ceremony acribing to the tronget an Authority over the weaket, have immediately truck out Government, without thinking of the Time requiite for Men to form any Notion of the Things ignified by the Words Authority and Government. All of them, in fine, contantly harping on Wants, Avidity, Oppreion, Deires and Pride, have transferred to the tate of Nature Ideas picked up in the boom of Society. In peaking of Savages they decribed Citizens. Nay, few of our own Writers eem to have o much as doubted, that a State of Nature did once actually exit; tho' it plainly appears by Sacred Hitory, that even the firt Man, immediately furnihed as he was by God himelf with both Intructions and Precepts, never lived in that State, and that, if we give to the Books of Moes that Credit which every Chritian Philoopher ought to give to