Page:Two Treatises of Government.djvu/37

 his words may be taken, and without eeing how, in any of thee various meanings, they will conit together, and have any truth in them : for in this preent paage before us, how can any one argue againt this poition of his, that Adam was a king from his creation, unles one examine, whether the words, from his creation, be to be taken, as they may, for the time of the commencement of his government, as the foregoing words import, as oon as he was created he was monarch ; or, for the caue of it, as he ays, p. 11. creation made man prince of his poterity ? how farther can one judge of the truth of his being thus king, till one has examined whether king be to be taken, as the words in the beginning of this paage would peruade, on uppoition of his private dominion, which was, by God's poitive grant, monarch of the world by appointment; or king on uppoition of his fatherly power over his off-pring, which was by nature, due by the right of nature; whether, I ay, king be to be taken in both, or one only of thee two enes, or in neither of them, but only this, that creation made him prince, in a way different from both the other ? For though this aertion, that Adam was king from his creation, be true in no ene, yet it tands here as an evident concluion drawn from the preceding words, though in truth it be but a bare aertion joined to other aertions of the ame kind, which confidently put to- Rh