Page:Two Treatises of Government.djvu/49

 pity the propriety of the Hebrew tongue had not ued fathers of men, intead of children of men, to expres mankind : then indeed our author might have had the countenance of the ound of the words, to have placed the title in the fatherhood. But to conclude, that the fatherhood had the right to the earth, becaue God gave it to the children of men, is a way of arguing peculiar to our author : and a man mut have a great mind to go contrary to the ound as well as ene of the words, before he could light on it. But the ene is yet harder, and more remote from our author's purpoe : for as it tands in his preface, it is to prove Adam's being monarch, and his reaoning is thus, God gave the earth to the children of men, ergo Adam was monarch of the world. I defy any man to make a more pleaant concluion than this, which cannot be excued from the mot obvious aburdity, till it can be hewn, that by children of men, he who had no father, Adam alone is ignified ; but whatever our author does, the cripture peaks not nonene.

§. 32. To maintain this property and private dominion of Adam, our author labours in the following page to detroy the community granted to Noah and his ons, in that parallel place, ix. Gen. 1, 2, 3. and he endeavours to do it two ways.

I. Sir Robert would peruade us againt the expres words of the cripture, that what Rh