the Apostle to Sons but to Servants or Slaves whose lives and all that they had were at their Masters absolue disposal being those whom the Apostle Paul calls Servants under the yoke and unless you will make a Slave and a Son to be all one which you have already denyed this precept doth not at all concern them And as for Example of Isaac that will make as little for your advantage for first as to Abraham he could not but know that to kill his Son without any just cause was as much murder in him as in any other Man Now what could be a juster or a higher cause than Gods particular Command So that as this act of Abraham is not to be taken as an Example by other Fathers so neither doth the Example of Isaac oblige other Sons to the like Submission therefore it is most reasonable to suppose that Isaac being then as Chronologers make him to be about nineteen or twenty years of age and of years of discretion to ask where was the Lamb for the Burnt-offering was also instructed by his Father before he came to be offered of the reason of his dealing thus with him and then the Submission was not payed to his Fathers but to Gods will from whom he miraculously received his being But if any Man doubt wheter resistance in such a Case were Lawful I leave it to his own conscience to consider whether if his Father had him alone in a place where he could neither run away nor yet call for help he would suffer his Father to cut his Troat without any resistance only because he pretended Divine Revelation for it Not but that I so far agree with you likewise as to limit such a resistance only to the holding his Fathers Hands or warding off his blows but not to the taking away his life but of the two rather to lose his own than to kill him for the reasons you have given and which I will not deny but yet if the Father be mad I much doubt whether the Son is boâ—nd to let him kill him rather than take away his life since such a Father's life is no way useful to the good of the Family So that thô I should grant that Paternal Power is from God and consequently irresissible yet doth it not follow that all the unjust force or violence which a Father as a Man may use against his Sons life or fortune is such part of a Paternal Power as God hath commanded us not to resist since your self must grant that he doth not thus act in going about to kill his Son as a father but a violent and wicked Man So that where the father hath no Right to take away his Sons life I think in all such Cases the Right of the Son to resist him doth take place And if a Man may resist or bind his Father when he is Mad or Drunk and in such fits goeth about to kill him I can see nothing to the contrary why he may not do the same thing when his Father is transported by a sudden rage or unreasonable malice since both of them do take away the use of natural Reason as much the one as the other according to that saying of the Poet Ira furor brevis est Anger is but a short madness Fury and Malice being alike fatal and destructive to the Sons life and safety with Drunkenness and Madness nor doth such a Son resist his Paternal Power but only his Brutish force and violence So that if Sons when grown to years of discretion have not a right to defend their lives in the State of Nature against all Persons whatsoever who go about to take it away without any just Cause every Son ought to suffer his Father to kill him when ever being transported by madness drunkenness or sudden passion he hath will so to do which how it can consist with that great Law of Nature of propagating and preserving the species of Mankind if a Father should have any unreasonable unlimitted Power I 'll leave it to your self or any other reasonable Man to consider nor doth it follow that because a Son can in no wise be Superiour to his Father he ought not therefore to resist him since thô I grant punishment is a Right of Superiours over their Inferiours yet so is not resistance since every one knows that resistance is exercised between equals as I have already proved Sons are to their Fathers in all the Rights of life and self-preservation and conseqently to judge when their Lives and Estates are unjustly invaded M. I must confess I am in a great doubt which will most conduce to that great Law you mention which I grant to be the Sum of all the Laws of Nature viz. of preserving or prosecuting the common good of Mankind that Fathers should have an absolute irreâ—istible Power over the Lives and Fortunes of their Children let them use it how they will or else that Children should have a Right to resist them in some cases when they go about to take away either of them without any just Cause for thô I own that if the former Principle be true Parents may be sometimes tempted to take away their Childrens Lives or Estates without any just Cause so on the other side if Children shall assume such a Power to themselves of judging when their Fathers do thus go about to invade either their Lives or Estates it will I doubt lay a foundation for horrid confusions and divisions in Families since if Children are under a constant subjection to their Fathers they ought then to be absolutely Subject to them in the State of Nature and therefore ought not to be resisted For if all Fathers and Masters of Families are trusted by God with an absolute Power of Life and Death over the Wife Children and Servants of the Family as your self cannot deny then no resistance of this absolute Power can subsist with the peace and tranquility of that Family without the diminution or total destruction of that absolute Power with which they are intrusted And thô I admit that Parents ought neither to use nor sell their Children for Slaves not to take away either their Lives or Goods without great and sufficient Cause yet of these Causes Fathers in the state of Nature must be the only and uncontrolable Judges since if Children whom I still consider as Subjects thô not as Slaves in the State as long as they continue members of their Fathers Family should once have a Right to resist when they thought their Lives or Estates were unjustly invaded they might also oftentimes through undutifulness or false suggestions pretend or suppose that their Fathers were mad drunk or in a passion and went about to take away their Lives when really they intend no such thing but only to give them due correction Which would give Children an unnatural power of resisting or perhaps of killing their Fathers upon false surmises or flight occasions And as
have been no more than that of the Husband over his Wife or that of Parents over their Children the former of which would not have been an Absolute Coercive power neither but rather such a power as his understanding then had over the inferiour Faculties of his Soul join'd with a voluntary submission of her will to his the Coercive power of the Husband and his more absolute Rule over her being conferr'd by God on Adam and in him on all his posterity after the Fall for the regulating and restraining the unreasonable desires and passions of the Woman which then began to exert and shew themselves in her and as for paternal Authority that would have been so far from being Coercive that Children having no Inclination to disorder either in their Wills Appetites or Passions there would have been so little need of punishments that they would not have required so much as reproof or correction God having planted the Laws of Nature or Reason in every Mans Breast then free from Rebellions Motions against it so that Children then could have had no more to do than to pay their Parents all that Gratitude Duty and Obedience which was due to them as the subordinate Causes of their Being which could only consist in performing those indifferent things which they then would have had occasion to command them since Mankind being Immortal and the Earth bringing forth of it self all Necessaries for Humane Life there could have been no occasion of attending and relieving their Parents when Sick Old or Decrepit and unable to keep themselves and so likewise upon the same grounds all other Men would have been equal by Nature in respect of any civil difference for when there was no necessity of Mens Service there would have been no distinction between Master and Servant But after the Fall the stare of Mankind was altered and Self-love and the desire of Self-preservation grew so strong and exorbitant above all Natural Equity that the inordinate passions of Men blinding their Reasons they began to think they had a Right not only to the Necessaries of Life but to whatever their unruly Appetites dâ—sired or that they thought they could make themselves Masters of To remedy which Inconveniences I suppose the Fathers and Masters of Families and other Freemen in whom alone then resided that little Government that then was in the World were forced after some time to agree upon one or more Men into whose hands they might resign all their particular powers and to make Laws for the due Governing and Restraining those disorderly Appetites and Passions and also endowing them with a sufficient Authority to put them in Execution But which of the Governments now extant or that have been formerly were Prior in Nature I think cannot well be known whether it was a Monarchy or an Aristocracy consisting of all the Heads or Fathers of Families or Freemen is not material since the SS are silent in it but it being sufficient to suppose that it was at first begun by the perswasion or mediation of some one or more Wise and Vertuous persons and was consented to by thy whole number consisting of many Families who were sensible of those great Inconveniences and Mischiefs they lay under for want of Civil Government But be it which way it will 't is most certain that it was principally intended by God for the God and Preservation of the Governed and not for the Greatness or Advantage of the Person or Parsons appointed tâ— Goverâ— since God designed all Civil Government for the restraining of Mans inordinate Passions and Lusts after the Fall and procuring by sufficient rewards and puniâ—â—ments that Peace and Happiness which could now no longer be obtained by Mens Natural Inclinations to that which was equitable and honest and besides it is absolutely impossible to suppose that any great number of people not pressed by the Invasion of a powerful Enemy from abroad which could not be supposed in this early Age of the World would ever be brought to consent to put themselves under the absolute power of others but for their own greater Good and Preservation or to part with their Natural Liberty without advantaging themselves at all by the Change M. I will not take upon me to assert after what manner Mankind would have been governed in case our First Parents had continued in their Primitive state of Innocency But this much I think I may boldly affirm in opposition to what you have already said that Civil Government after the Fall was not alike in all the Fathers and Masters of Families but that Adam alone was by God endued with it as the great Father and Monarch of Mankind so that not only Civil Power in genere but in specie viz. Monarchical was immediately after the Creation conferred by God upon him And Adam was Monarch of the whole World even before he had any Subjects F. Sir not to interrupt you it seems somewhat hard to conceive how Adam could be a Father before he had Children or a Monarch before he had Subjects M. If you please to consider it you will find no absurdity at all in this Assertion For though I confess there could be no actual Government without Subjects nor Fatherhood without Sons yet by the Right of Nature it was due to Adam to be Governour of the World when as yet he had neither Sons nor Subjects so though not in act yet at least in habit or in Potentia as they say in the Schools Adam was a King and a Father from his Creation and even in the state of Innocency he had been Governour over his Wife and Children for the Integrity or Excellency of the Subjects doth not take away the Order or Eminency of the Governour For Eve was subject to Adam before he sinned and the Angels who are of a most pure Nature and cannot Sin are yet Subjects to God and perform all his Commands Which will serve to conâ—ute what you say in Derogation of Civil Government or Power that it was introduced by Sin or the Fall of Man Government I grant as to co-active Power was not till after Sin because Co-action supposeth some disorder which was not in the state of Innocency but as for directive Government the State of Humane Nature requires it since Civil Society cannot be imagined without a Power of Government For although as long as Men continued in the State of Innocency they might not need the direction of Adam in those things that were necessarily and morally to be done Yet things indifferent that depended meerly on their Free-will might well be directed by Adam's sole Command F. Pray Sir give me leave to settle this Point-between us before you proceed farther and I doubt not when you better consider what I say you will not think we have any just occasion to differ So far then you and I are agreed that even before the Fall Adam was superior over his Wife and Children and that they owed
him not only Gratitude and Respect as a Parent but also Obedience in all indifferent things Yet I deny that this Power or Supâ—â—iority of Adam over his Wife and Children was at all a Despotical or Civil Power but meerly Oeconomical for the Good and Convenience of Adam and the well ordering and preservation of his Family which you will easily grant if you please to consider what are the Essential Differences of Civil Government from Oeconomical Now the Essential Properties of Civil Government consist in preserving and defending the Subjects both in War and Peace from Forreign Enemies and Intestine Injurieâ— and Invasions of Mens Persons or Properties and in revenging and punishing all such Transgressions by Death or other Punishments and consequently in making Laws concerning Property and for restraining all Robberies Murders and the like Now in the state of Innocency there could be no need of any of these Essential Functions of Civil Power for your self must grant that Man was then not apt to Sin and immortal so that all Laws about Peach or War Punishments of Offences publick Judgments concerning Meum Tuum and all Injuries were absolutely needless and had never been in Nature if Adam had not sinned and then how you can call this Authority or Superiority which I grant Adam had over his Wife and Children Civil Power I can by no means understand But I do utterly deny that even after the Fall Adam was a Monarch or Sole and Absolute Lord over the whole Earth and all Creatures therein contained and desire you to give me such plain proofs of it either from Reason or Scripture that I need no more doubt of it than your self M. I shall first of all give you an Argument drawn from the Reason of the thing and in the next place the Authority of Scripture for my Opinion and first I think it is evident that every Man that is Born is so â—at from being Free that by his very Birth he becomes a Subject of him that begets him and even Grotiâ—â— hâ—mself acknowledges that Generatione â—us acquiritur in liberos And indeed the Act of Begetting being that which makes a Man a Father his Right of a Father over his Children can Naturally arise from nothing else and the same Author in another plâ—ce hath these words upon the Fourth Commandment Parentum nomine qui naturales luns Magistraus etiam alios Rectores par est iutelligi quorum authoritas Sociâ—tatem humanam continet And if Parents be natural Magistrates Children must needs he Born Natural Subjects So that not only Adam but the succeeding Patriarchs had by Right of Fatherhood Regal Authority over their Children as may 〈◊〉 by divers Testimonies out of Scrâ—pture and therefore at is very reasonable that all Fathers should have a Power over the Lives of their Children since it is to them that they owe their Life Being and Education and I think that even the Power which God himself exerciseth over Mankind is by Right of Fatherhood F. Before you come to Scripture give me leave in the first place to examine your first Argument which you deduced from the Law of Nature or Reason For I doubt if you please better to consider of it you will and that so light and Transitory an Action as that of Generation cannoâ— give any Man an absolute Property and Dominion over the Person and â—â—fe of those whom he Begets since sew Men do principally intend the giving of a Being to another so much as they do their own pleasure in that Action nor do we owe our Lives properly speaking to our Parents but to God who is the true and original Cause of our Being though it is true he makes use of our Parents as Physical though not as Moral Means or Instruments for that end since it doth not lye in their power to hinder their Generating of Children if they perform the Acts necessary thereunto so that both the antecedent and the consequent are altogether false viz. That Parents give their Children Life and Being and that therefore they have and absolute power over their Lives and Persons which if it were true would give the Mother an equal Title to the Lives of the Children as the Father seeing they owe their Lives as much to the one as the other Which power in the Mother I am sure you will not admit of But as for what you say concerning the power of Fathers arising from Education though I confess that is a much better Title than the other Yet doth it not follow that because by reason of my Parents care of me before I was able to help my self I owe my preservation and well being to them that therefore they are to be perpetual and absolule Lords over my Person and Life Since by thus breeding me up they only perform'd that Duty and Trust which God had laid upon them for the good and preservation of Manking and which they could not without committing a Sin either refuse or decline and therefore their Authority or Power over my Person being only for my well-being can extend no farther tan whilst I am not of years of discretion to understand the true means of my own good and preservation And though I grant that I am bound in gratitude to return this Care and Kindness by all Acts of Duty and Piety towards them as long I live yet doth it not therefore follow thar they are Masters of my Life and of all that I have since this were to take away more than they themselves ever gave and though I should grant you that even the Power which God himself exerciseth over Mankind is by Right of Fatherhood yet this Fatherhood is such as utterly excludes all pretence of Title in Earthly Parents for he is our King because he is indeed maker of us all which no Natural Parents can pretend to be of their Children but if you please more closely to consider your own Argument you will find that he will quite destroy your Hypothesis For if all Fathers have an absolute power over their Children by Generations then Adam could only have power over his own Children which he begat and none at all over his Grand-Children since their Fathers by this Argument of Generation ought to have had the same power over their Children which Adam had over them for the same reason So that this Monarchical Power of Adam as a Father could extend no farther than one Generation M. I shall not further urge this Argument of Generation since I see you are not satisfied with it but this much I think I can clearly prove from Scripture that Adam was Lord over the Persons and Lives of his Wife and Children by vertue of that command which God gave Eve Gen. 3. v. 16. Unto the Woman he said I will greatly mutilply thy sorrow and thy Conception In sorrow thou shalt bring forth Children and thy desire shall be to thy Husband and he shall rule over thee From which words it
quit his Fathers Family and joyning himself to his Wife may set up another of his own But as for the Children that were begotten between them tho' I grant they might be intended both for the comfort and assistance of him and her yet I have already proved that the Parents are more chiefly intended for their Childrens Propagation and Preservation than the Children are for their Interest and Happyness Your fouth consideration is only a supposition of the question which is yet to be pâ—oved that Eve was under an absolute subjection to Adam after the Fall I have already proved this supposition not to be true and therefore the consequence as to the Children is false likewise Your fifth is rather an interrogation than an Argument whether Children ought not to be and have not always been subject to their Parents all over the World In answer to which I grant that it is true that they have ever been so tho' not in your sense For I hold this subjection neither to be servile or absolute nor yet perpetual as long as they live but in reply to this limitation of the Power of Parents over their Children both in its extent and duration you tell me this is purely owing to the Civil Laws of Nations and not to the Laws of Nature and for a proof of this you produce Gods own people the Jews for an example that the power of the Father over his Son was not determined but by his Death But your self confesses that he could not exercise this Power of Life and Death but in the presence of the Magistrate the circumstances of which if they be considered will rather make against you for first the Father could not have this rebellioâ—s Son put to Death till he had accus'd him before the Elders of the City that is the Judges who were establisht in every Precinct who upon a solemn hearing were to sentence such a rebellious Son to be stoned to Death by all the People of the City where you may observe that the Father had no power to put him to Death himself and therefore acted in this case as an accuser or a witness not as a Judge But if you 'l believe Maimonides one of the most Learned of the Jewish Rabbins he will tell you that by the Municipal Law of the Jews this power of the Father did scarce extend beyond the thirteenth year of the Son's Age after which the Son was reckoned Adult and Emancipated from his Fathers Powers and could not after that incur this punishment of a Stubborn and Rebellious Son and a Father who did but strike his Son after he was Adult incurr'd Excommunication for that he offended against the Law And tho' I grant that the Nations you mention did exercise a Power of Life and Death over their Wives and Children yet will not the Practice of some particular Nations tho' never so much civiliz'd amount to a proof of a Law of Nature which is only to be made out from evident Rules of Right Reason and the great end of this Law the common good of Mankind and especially when against the Examples of those Nations which you produce I can likewise set those of many more Nations where this Custum was not allowed after once Civil Government was establisht And as for the Romans themselves amongst whom the greatest Examples of this kind are to be found they will not all of them amount to above three or four in six or seven hundred years and then tho' there might be very good cause for it yet the People of Rome never so much esteemed or loved such Fathers after they had put their Sons to Death as they did before but counted them too severe and cruel for so doing And you read in Valerius Maximus and Seneca that they killed Erixiin a Roman Gentleman for whipping his Son to Death like a Slave so much did they abhor all such Cruelty of Parents towards their Children and afterwards when by the General Corruption of Manners amongst the Romans Fathers grew more cruel to their Children and often put them to Death without cause Those of your Faculty suppose that some of the Roman Emperous tho' it is uncertain who took away this Power from Fathers and made it as it is now among us Murder for a Father to put his Son to Death tho' others since there are no particular Edicts to be found concerning this matter do suppose this Law to be changed by degrees and to be left off by common consent of the Romans themselves for it seems dangerous to grant to a private person the cognizance of any crime which might belong to publick Authority and they thought it better to strengthen both the Paternal and Marital Power by other Laws than putting to Death And therefore Simplecius upon Epictetus his Enchiridion says that the Romans allowed Fathers this Power because they thought they might very well trust their Natural Affection to their Children for the exercise of that Power of selling them or putting them to Death which 't was supposed they would rarely use unless compelled by extream necessity or unpardonable crimes and therefore if a Father would put his Son to death he was to do it with his own hands that he might suffer as well as his Son but when this render affection â—oo failed it was no wonder that the Roman Emperors did not think it for the common good of their People to trust Fathers with this Power any longer which they had hitherto exercised not so properly by right of Fatherhood as that of the Master of a Family who governed his Servants and his Sons by a like Authority To conclude I cannot but observe how slyly you wave my objection against the Divine Institution of Monarchy for tho' you seem loth expresly to condemn all other Governments as unlawful yet the consequence will be the same upon your principles For if it be a good argument which some make use of for the Government of the Church by Bishops because that Government being supposed by them to have been instituted by the Apostles by Divine Precept therefore that no other Government but Episcopacy can be lawful or any true Church where that Government is not in use so the same argument will likewise hold in Civil Governments that all others must be unlawful if Monarchy alone were ordained by God and that all other forms whatsoever began from Rebellion or the Fancies of Men. M. To answer what you have said in the first place I cannot so slightly pass over this argument of the Law of Nations by which I supposed the Power of Fathers over the Persons of their Children is sufficiently established and from whence also it appears that among the Iews as well as Romans the Children were lookt upon as part of the substance of their Father and consequently that they had a perpetual right in their Persons as long as they lived that the Romans had the power of selling their Children
Power but when they exceed those limits they cease to Act as true Superiors or Governors and therefore when instead of Husbands or Fathers they prove Destroyers of their Families I doubt not but they may then be lawfully resisted by them For suppose such a Father of a Family should in a furious or drunken fit go about to kill his Wife or one of his innocent Children can any body think this was Treason against the Monarch of the Family if his Wife or one of his Sons should rescue her self or this innocent Child out of his hands by force if they could not otherwise quiet him M. This supposition of Madness or Drunkenness in Fathers of Families you Gentlemen of Commonwealth Principles make great use of to justify your Doctrin of Resistance and I know no reason why you might not extend it as well to Anger Lust or any other Passion that a man is subject to and have given all the World a power to Judg when a man is Drunk or mad as well as his Wife Children or Servants nor do I know why you so much insist upon it but because the Authors from whence you had it are so in love with Rebellion and Disorder that they seek and catch at every opportunity to recommend it to the World But I believe had you a Wife Child or Servant that should take the liberty of controling you upon this pretence you would be more enraged with the Reason of the Resistance than with the Resistance it self F. I am sorry Sir any thing I have said can so far transport you to passion as to make such unkind Reflections upon your Friends but pray be not so hot is it not possible that a Master or Father in the State of Nature may be mad or drunk M. Yes And is it not possible also that the Wife may be so too Now suppose they should mutually charge each other with madness or drinking too much who shall Judg betwixt them â— What horrible confusion must this introduce into all Societies to give inferiors a power to Judg their Superiors to be mad or drunk and thereupon to resist and oppose them with force But if it doth at any time happen Wives Children and Servants that are dutiful may have ways to appease their Husbands Fathers or Masters when mad or drunk without resisting or Fighting them as by getting out of the way or by submission Prayers and Tears which Nature hath taught them on such occasions to make use of and which is a thousand times a better method than those violent Courses you propose F. All I desire of you in this Conversation is that you would be pleased to believe I do not Argue out of any love to Rebellion or Disorder or that I desire to encourage it in private Families much less to recommend it to the World only what I speak is purely out of a desire of the happiness and preservation of Mankind and I hope I say no more than what all sober men will allow may be every day practised in private Families and therefore since you will needs have it I do extend this Power of Resistance not only to Madness or Drunkenness alone but even to Anger Lust or any other Exorbitant Passion a man can be subject to and I do likewise give all the World a power to Judg when such a man is mad or furiously passionate as well as his Wife Servants or Children if in those drunken or mad fits he goeth about to kill them or any else For I think in that case you will not deny but any honest Neighbour may step in and bind him or hold his hands and so may likewise the Wife or Children themselves As suppose this Father or Husband should be so far Transported with passion or lust as to go about to kill his Wife or ravish his Daughter I hope you will not deny but they may lawfully resist him if they can neither run away nor yet pacify him by submission prayers or tears which I grant are much better methods if they may prevail But what if they can neither get away nor yet any of those gentle means you propose can work any good upon him what shall they do then Can any one believe that God hath appointed an innocent Wife or Children to be made a Sacrifice to the madness drunkenness passion or lust of such a Father or Husband And as for the Case you put Where the Husband or Wife should charge each other with madness or drinking too much who should judg between them it is a meer Cavil for as long as they only fall out and only brangle it is no matter whether there be any Judg or not But if it proceeds to blows and they are like to mischif or kill each other no doubt but the Children or Neighbours may come in and part them and may either hold or shut up one or both of them till they are sober M. Pray Sir let us leave this touchy Discourse concerning Self-defence till anon when we shall have occasion to fall more naturally upon it Suppose then I should at present grant you That a Wise or Children may in case of such Extremities as may happen to them by the madness or Drunkenness of the Husband or Father restrain or resist his violence in case no other means can prevail what is this to disobeying his Commands or resisting him when he is sober Which certainly they have no right to do But to come as near you as possible I can and to let you see I am not a man of a domineering temper and who approves of unnecessary Severities or unnatural Rigours either in Masters of Families Husbands or Fathers I grant that no Father or Master of a Family has any right to punish or put to death the meanest of his Slaves much less his Children without a sufficient cause or that he may sell his Children or otherwise Tyrannize over them by cruel usage or too severe punishments since they are not only part of his own Substance and to whom by the order of the Creation he gave a being but was also as you well observe ordained by God for their happiness and preservation as they were also as well as his Wife for his constant help comfort and subsistence and therefore they were as much or more made for him as he for them as it is plain concerning the Wife from the Text in Genesis when God said It is not good that the man should be alone I will make him a help meet for him Gen. 2.17 viz. the Woman and therefore as her subjection to her Husband is perpetual as long as she lives so likewise is that of the Children in whom he acquireth a Property by their Education for so many years which I look upon as a greater obligation than their Generation and over both whom he must in the State of Nature have an absolute power of life and death which though I grant he may
this would introduce great mischief and confusion in privte Families so would it likewise prove a Foundation of Rebellion against all Civil Powers whatsoever if Subjects who are the same thing in a Kingdom that Children are in a Family in the State of Nature should take upon them to resist their Prince when ever they think he goeth about to invade either their Lives or Fortunes which would likewise serve to justify all the most horrid Rebellions in the World since all Rebels whatsoever may or do pretend that their Lives Liberties and Fortunes are unjustly invaded when indeed they are not and Likewise upon the least hardship or injustice in this kind inflicted upon any private Subject either by the Prince or his Ministers which abuses and violences do often happen even under the Best Governments any such private Person who shall think himself thus injured may upon this principle take up Arms and endeavour to right or defend himself against such violence by which means under pretence of securing a few Men in their Lives or Estates whole Kingdoms if such Persons can find follows enough may be cast into all the mischiefs and confusions of a Civil War till the Prince and Government be quite destroyed F. I must confess the Arguments you now bring are the best you have yet produced since they are drawn from that great and certain Law of procuring the common good and peace of mankind But I hope I shall make it plain to you that no such terrible consequences will follow from the Principles I have already laid down and therefore I must first take notice that you have in your answer confounded two Powers together which ought to be distingishued in the State of Nature viz. The Power which Fathers as Masters or Heads of Families may exercise over the Lives of their Children or Servants whilst they remain Members of their Family and that reverence and duty which Children must always owe their Fathers as long as they live even after they become Fathers or Masters of Families of their own In the first State I have already allowed that such Fathers as Masters of Families may Lawfully exercise a far greater Power over their Children whilst they are members of their Family than they can when they are seperated from it yet is not this Power in all Cases absolute or irresistible as I have already proved and therefore I do in the first place restrain this Right of self-defence only to such Cases where a Father would take away a Sons life in a fit of drunkenness madness or sudden passion without any crime committed or just cause given which I also limit to a bare self defence without injuring or taking away the life of the Father if it can possibly be avoided and in this Case if the Son who is like to suffer this violence may not judge when his life is really in danger to be destroyed because he may pretend so when really it is not This is no just reason to overthrow so great a Right as self Preservation since if this were a sufficient objection it would have the same force against all self defence whatsoever For it doth often happen that wicked and unreasonable Men will pretend that they were forced to take away the lives of others only to preserve their own when indeed it was altogether false and needless and they only killed them to satisfy their own malice or passion And therefore as there is no reason that the abuse of this natural Right should be used as an Argument against the use of all self-defence by any Man whatsoever So likewise neither ought the like abuse hereof by some wicked Children to be brought as an Argument against its being made use of at all by others who are never so unjustly assaulted and in danger of their Lives from their Fathers violence If the first principle be true on which this is founded that a Son may excercise this Right of self-defence in such Cases without any intrenchment upon his Fathers Paternal Authority or that Filial duty and respect which he must always owe him when ever he returns to himself and will behave himself towards him as becomes a Father and not like an Enemy or Cut-throat And as for the quarrels and confusions which you alledge may happen in Families between Fathers and Children in case such a liberty should be allowed those inconveniencies will prove very inconsiderable if you please to take Notice That first I do not allow this Right of resistance to be exercised by any Children before they attain to years of discretion Secondly that after they have attained to these years no resistance ought to be made against a Father whilst they remain part of their Fathers Family but only in defence of their own their Mothers Wives and Childrens Lives since I grant that a Son as long as he continues a member of his Fathers Family ought to bestow all his own labour for his Fathers profit and cannot acquire any property either in Lands or Goods without his Fathers consent And since you conceive this Right of self-defence if allowed to Children would be the cause of so great mischiefs in Families if Children should have no Right to judge when their Fathers abused their power over them let us a little consider on which side this abuse is most likely to happen for if you please but to look into the World and survey the Nature of Fathers and Children and set the faults of the one against the other you will find that as I confess it is the Nature of many Children to contradict and disobey their Fathers Commands and that most young people hate restraint and love too much liberty and may oftentimes think their Fathers too harsh or severe to them when really they are not yet doth such false surmises and disobedient actions seldom end either in absolute resistance or taking away their Fathers lives by force or if they do so it is really done for their own defence or whilst they are assaulted by them in their own Lives or those of their Children but is commonly acted privately to satisfie their own revenge or malice which I hold to be utterly unlawful so likewise let us consider on the other side those temptations that Fathers lye under of injuring their Children or taking away their Lives or uâ—ing them like Slaves without any just Cause you 'll find that they by reason of their age natural temper or infirmities may be easily transported to that degree of passion that not considering the follies of Youth they may oftentimes in their passion either beat them so cruelly as utterly to disable or maime them or else take away their Lives for little or no Cause And besides Fathers being often covetous and ill-natured which are the vices of old age may where there is no power over them to restrain them from it either keep them as Slaves themselves or else sell them to others for that purpose as I
have already given you an example of the Negroes in Africa and which of these two inconveniencies are most likely to happen between Children and Parents in the State of Nature I should leave is to any indifferent Man to judge between us And therefore I think it more conduces to the good and peace of Families and consequently the happiness and preservation of Mankind which are the end of all Laws that Children should be allowed these Rights I have alâ—erdy laid down of asserting this Natural Liberty from Slavery and defending their Lives and those of their Wives and Children from the unjust violence of their Fathers than that they should be left wholly at disposal to be maimed killed or ruined when over this coveteousness passion or malice may prompt them to it Sence if all Fathers were satisfied that their Children have a Right thus to defend themselves in these Cases against their unjust violence it would be a means to make them act more catiously and to behave themselves with greater tenderness and moderation towards them So than to conclude I utterly deny that these Principles I have here laid down do at all rend to countenance Rebellion or raising disturbances in Civil Governments since I cannot allow you have proved Parents to be Princes or Monarchs in the State of Nature or that Families and Kingdoms or Commonwealths are all one Or if I should grant them to be so yet would it not therefore follow that every private Subject in a Civil State hath the same Right to defend his life or that of his Wife and Children against the violence or injustice of the Supream Powers as a Son may have in the State of Nature to defend his life c. against his Fathers rage or violence since I grant no particular Subject can contradict or resist the Supream Power of the Lawfull Magistrate however unjustly exercised by force without disturbing or at least endangering the quiet and happiness of the whole Community and perhaps the dissolution of the Government it self which is against the duty not only of a good Subject but also of an honest Moral Man who will not disturb the publick tranquility for his own private security or revenge But in private Families the Case is otherwise and Children may resist their Father in the Cases already put without introducing either Anarchy or Civil War in the Family since it can scarce be presumed that either their Mother Brothers or Sisters will take part with a Son or Brother against their Husband and Father unless it ware that they might thereby hinder him from committing murder by defending their Son or Brothers life when thus violently and without cause assaulted and if it should sometimes happen otherwise yet this would be a much less mischief then that out of this fear the Lives and Liberties of an innocent Wife and Children should suffer without cause by his drunkenness or passion But as for the resistance which Sons may make in the State of Nature and when separated from their Fathers Families it is of a much larger extent since they may then not only defend their own Lives but also those of their Wives and Children with their Estates against their Fathers unjust violence Thò I do here likewise restrain this self-defence only to cases of actual invasion or asault of such Fathers upon the Lives and Estates of his Children in which cases I also absolutely condemn all actions and proceedings done by way of prevention before such violence or assault is actually begun to be made upon them much less do I allow of any revenge or return of evil for evil by such Children when the danger is over since however such revenge may be Lawful between Persons in the State of Nature no ways related or oblieged to each other yet do I by no means allow the same Priviledge to Children against their Parents since I look upon the obligation they have to them to be of so high a Nature that it can never totally be cancelled thô in those cases of self-preservation and defence they may be suspended for a time As if I owed my life and all that I have to some great Person who hath either saved the one or bestowed the other upon me thô I should be very undutiful and ungratful too if upon his becoming my Enemy thô without any just cause I should go about to return his injuries in the same kind yet were I not therefore obliged to give up that Life and Estate he had before bestowed upon me when ever he thought fit without any just occasion to take them away and I am confident that Resistance in these cases and with these restrictions doth neither derogate from that Gratitude and Piety which Children always ought to pay their Fathers nor yet can tend to encourage either Anarchy or Rebellion since such Sons when once married and are become Masters or Heads of Families themselves they then cease to be under their Fathers Subjection as they were before tho I confess they are always to honour and reverence him according to Gods Command in all cases when they will deal with them as Fathers and not as Enemies M. I shall no longer dispute this Right of Resistance in Children in the Cases you have put since I see it is to little purpose to argue longer with you about it but this much I think is still true that all Supream Powers whatever cannot without Rebellion and absolute dissolution of the Government be risisted by the Subject so that if the Government of Fathers or Heads of Families be Supream as you seem to grant that cannot be resisted neither without bringing all things therein to Anarchy and confusion F. Pray give me leave Sir to interrupt you a little I desire you to remember that I do not allow the Power of Fathers or Masters of Families to be any more then Oeconomical and not Civil Power and I have already shewed you how Resistance of such a Power when violently and unjustly exercised may be resisted without any Anarchy or confusion in the Family but as for Resistance of Civil Powers in some Cases it is not the Subject of this discourse and therefore I desire you would now mind the Subject in Hand and not pass off to any other till we have dispatcht this so that I would rather if you have any fresh objections to make that you would now do it because it groweth late M. I must confess ingeniously your Arguments have much sâ—aggered me since I see great inconveniencies may happen on either side for if the Father or Master may be the sole Judg when and how he may exercise this absolute Power I grant all those mischiefs may sometimes fall out which you have here set forth so on the other side if the Children may be Judges in their own case those evils may often happen which I have already alledged And therefore pray pardon me if I am not too hasty in altering my opinion in
no Exorbitant heighth I think I am able to prove from many passages in his Patriarcha as well as other Works that no Author hath made bolder Assertions to render all Mankind Slaves instead of Subjects and all Princes Tyrants instead of Kings and that his Principles are so far from being safe that if they are duly lookt into and weighed they will prove destructive as well to the Rights of Princes as to the Liberties of the People M. I should be very glad to see that proved for I must always believe till you shew me to the contrary that this Excellent Author lays it down for a Ground that Princes being as Fathers to their People are bound to treat their Subjects as Children and not as Slaves and therefore waving this last Controversie which we have argued as far as it will go pray make out what you say from his own words and I will give up the Cause F. I wonder how you can be so partially blind as not to see this since you your self have already made use not only of a great deal of his Doctrins but also of his very words And therefore pray see his Obedience to Government in doubtful times as also in his Preface to the Observations upon Aristotle's Politicks where you will find he asserts That Adam was the Father King and Lord over his Family a Son a Subject and a Servant or a Slave were one and the same thing at first The Father had power to dispose of or sell his Children or Servants Whence we find that at the first reckoning of Goods in Scripture the Man-servant and the Maid-servant are number'd among the Possessions and Substance of the Owner as other Goods were So that then if the Power of a Father and of a Monarch be all one and that all Monarchical Power is Despotical the Consequence is also as evident that all Subjects are also naturally Slaves unless their Princes shall please to lay an easier Yoke upon them M. Perhaps Sir R. F. may have carried this matter a little too far yet if you please to look into his Patriarcha Chap. 3. Par. 1. you will find that he hath this passage which plainly speaks the contrary The Father of a Family Governs by no other Law than by his own Will not by the Laws and Wills of his Sons and Servants There is no Nation that allows Children any Action or Remedy for being unjustly Governed and yet for all this every Father is bound by the Law of Nature to do his best for the preservation of his Family but much more is a King always tyed by the same Law of Nature to keep this general Ground That the Safety of his Kingdom be his Chief Law Whence you may observe that tho' he takes away all Remedy from Children against their Parents for being ill Governed yet doth he not set the Father free from all Obligation to preserve the Good of his Family of which sure a Man's Children are a principal part And if you please to look back to the second Chapter Par. 3. you will find these words To answer in particular to the first Text it may be said the sense of these words By the Law of Nature all Men are born free must needs mean a Freedom only that is opposite to such a Subjection as is between Father and Son This is made manifest by the Text of the Law For Ulpian in this place speaketh only of Manumission which is a setting at Liberty of Servants from Servitude and not of Emancipation which is the freeing of Children from the Fathers Tuition Servitude as the Law teacheth is a Constitution of the Law of Nations by which a Man is subject to the Dominion of any other Man against Nature So not every Subjection is Servitude but Subjection contrary to the Law of Nature Yet every Man is born subject to the Power of a Father This the Law it self saith In Potestate nostra Liberi nostri sunt So that you see here be maketh a difference between Servitude and that Subjection that is due to Fathers F. Give me leave to answer these two Instances before you proceed any farther and I shall in the first place make bold to answer your last Instance first because I shall be much shorter upon it But pray take notice by the way that this Author is very high and rigorous for the Absolute Power of Life and Death in all Fathers over their Children in the State of Nature and that they may exercise it for very slight Offences and therefore in this Chapter you have last quoted he seems very well satisfied with the Example of Cassius who threw his Son out of the Consistory for publishing the Agrarian Law for the Division of Lands and I think this was no such great Crime for which a Father might justifie the putting his Son to Death And in the Section before this he justifieth the Power of Fathers amongst the Romans as being ratified and amplified by the Laws of the XII Tables enabling Parents to sell their Children two or three times over So that these things considered I cannot see how this Distinction of Sir R. F. out of the Civil Law will do him any service For tho' I grant indeed that Manumission and Emancipation are two different words yet do they both signifie the same thing and tho' for the greater respect which they would shew to the Condition of Children above that of Slaves they were pleased to make use of different expressions yet whoever will look more closely into the Nature of the Subjection that Children were in under their Parents by the Roman Law will find that the Condition of Children was no better than that of Slaves For First The Father had such an Absolute Power over the Person of the Son that he could sell him three times whereas he could sell a Slave but once Secondly He had such an Absolute Power over his Life that he could take it away whenever he pleased Lastly A Son could have no Property in any Goods without his Fathers Consent till he was emancipated or made free So that if his Father were harsh and ill natured the Condition of a Son was worse than that of a Slave as long as his Father lived And therefore I am still of the Opinion of the Antient Civil Lawyers which assert the Natural Freedom of Mankind according to the Maxim you have now cited And they acknowledge that the Servitude or Absolute-Subjection of Children to their Fathers was not by the Law of Nature but by the Civil or Roman Law peculiar to themselves as I have already proved at our last meeting But to come to your first Quotation whereby you would justifie Sir R. F. for maintaining any unjust Severity in Fathers or Tyranny in Princes because they are both to endeavour the Common Good of the Family and Kingdom t is very true he says so but of this Common Good they themselves are the sole Iudges So that if
But it is very strange to me that none of them deposed any thing concerning their seeing any Milk come from Her Majesties Breasts after she was Delivered And perhaps there was good reason for it for I have had it from good hands that she had none afterwards whatever she had before the reason of which deserves to be enquired into since it is very rare But as for the Mid-Wife her deposition is equivocal That she took a Child from the Body of the Queen She is also a Papist and consequently a suspected witness in this cause Whereas all this might have been prevented had the Queen were she really with Child been perswaded to be Delivered not within the Bed but upon a Pallate where all the persons whose business and concern it was to be present might have seen the Child actually born nor needed there to have any men been by though I have heard that the late Queen of France was Delivered of the present King the Dake of Orleans not being only present in the Room but an Eye-witness of the Birth And so sure if somewhat of this nature had been done it might have saved a great deal of dispute and bloodshed which has already or may hereafter happen about it And therefore I do not at all wonder that the Prince of Orange should not take this partial Evidence that has been given for sufficient satisfaction so that whether this Birth of the Queens was real or not I shall not now farther dispute It is sufficient that if His Highness and His Princess had just and reasonable suspitions of an Imposture whilst they remain under them they had also a just cause of procuring a Free Parliament to examine this great affair and also to obtain it by force since it was to be got no other way M. I need not further dispute this business of the Prince of Wales with you since I durst appeal to your own Conscience whether you are not satisfied notwithstanding these supposed indiscretions in the management of the Queens Delivery that he is really Son to the Queen and I think it would puzzle you or I to prove the Legitimacy of our own Children by better evidence than this has been and I think all those of your party may very well despair of producing any thing against it since the Prince of Orange himself has thought it best to let it alone as knowing very well there was nothing material could be brought in evidence against him But I shall defer speaking further to this Head till I come to consider of the Conventions setling the Crown upon the Prince and Princess of Orange But before I come to this I have many things further to observe upon the Princes harsh and unjust proceedings with his Majesty and refusing all terms of Accommodation with him upon his last return to London In the first place therefore I must appeal to your self whether It were done like a Nephew and a Son-in-Law after the King was voluntarily returned to White Hall at the perswasion of those Lords who went down to attend him at Feversham when he had had scarce time to rest him after his journey and the many hardships he had indured since his being seized in that Port and when he had but newly sent my Lord Feversham with a kind Message and Complement to the Prince inviting him to St. Iames's together with some overtures of Reconciliation as I am informed the Prince should make no better a return to all this kindness than to clap up the Messenger contrary to the Law of Nations as his Majesty observes in his Late Paper I now mentioned And should without any notice given to the King of it order his men to march and displacing his Majesties Guards to seize upon all the Posts about White-Hall whereby his Majesties Person became wholly in his Power And not content with this he likewise dispatcht three Lords whose names I need not mention to carry the King a very Rude and Undutiful Message desiring him no less than to depart the next Morning from his Pallace to a private House in the Countrey altogether unfit for the reception of his Majesty and those Guards and attendance that were necessary for his security Nor would these Lords stay till the Morning but disturbing his rest delivered their Message at Twelve a Clock at Night nor did they give him any longer time than till the next Morning to prepare himself to be gone and then the King was carried away to Rochester under the conduct not of his own but of the Princes Dutch Guards in whose custody his Majesty continued for those few days he thought fit to stay there till his departure from thence in order to his passage into France by which means the Prince hath render'd the breach irreconcileable between his Majesty and himself for whereas if he had come to St. Iames's in pursuance of the Kings Invitation and had renewed the Treaty which was unhappily broke off by the Kings first going away there might have been in great probability a happy and lasting reconciliation made between them upon such terms as might have been a sufficient security for the Church of England as also for the Rights and Liberties of the Subject which you so earnestly contend for whereas by the Conventions declaring the Throne vacant and placing the Prince and Princess of Orange therein they have entail'd a lasting War not only upon us but our Posterity as long as his Majesty lives and the Prince of Wales and his Issue if he live to have any are in Being F. I confess you have made a very Tragical relation of this affair and any one that did not understand the grounds of it would believe that King Iames being quietly setled in his Throne and the Prince of Orange refusing all terms of reconciliation had seiz'd upon his Pallace and carried him away Captive into a Prison whereas indeed there was nothing transacted in all this affair which may not be justified by the strictest Rules of Honour and the Law of Nations for the doing of which it is necessary to look back and consider the state of affairs immediately after the Kings leaving Salisbury and coming to White-hall where one of the first things he did after he was arrived was to issue out a Proclamation for the calling a new Parliament which was so received with great satisfaction by the whole Nation and immediately upon this the King sent the Lords Hallifax Nottingham and Godolphin to treat with his Highness upon those Proposals of Peace which he then sent by them and to which the Prince return'd his answer the heads of which are very reasonable without demanding any other security for himself and his Army than the putting of the Tower and Forts about London into the Custody of that City now pray observe the issue of all those fair hopes before ever the terms propos'd by the Prince could be brought to Town the King following the ill advice of the