Besides , to examin it a little farther , if this power of paction , or contract , had been in the people , then it must lie in all the people , as an equal , common right , or in some particular part ; if in all of them , they would do well to shew how they came by it ; or if in any more peculiar part , by what Authority were the rest excluded ; it being a Maxim in Law , Quod nostrum est sine facto , vel defectu nostro amitti , vel in alium transferri non potest , Whatever is mine , cannot be lost , or transferr'd unto another , without my own act , or defect . Nor would it be less enquir'd , who were the persons suppos'd to have made the contract ? or whether all , without difference of Sex , Age , or Condition , were admitted to drive the bargain ? and if so , Wives and Children were not sui juris , and consequently could not conclude others , nor themselves for any longer time , than during the disability : Which once remov'd , they were free again : Or if all were admitted , whether it were with an equal right to every one , or with some inequality ? was the Servants interest ( if yet such a thing could be among equals ) equal with the Masters ? and if not , who made the inequality ? or if equal , who could summon the rest ? or when met , regulate , preside , or moderate ? and thus new Atlantis-men , run round the maze , not knowing how to disentangle themselves ; and like men in a mist , lose their way by seeking to find it .

Whereas on the other hand , if we should admit the thing , and that Princes had no more right , than what the People shall think fit to entrust them withal , which also , they may enlarge , or restrain at pleasure : Then what follows , but that their Power is precarious , and ambulatory , and subject to be varied , according to the exigency of times , and occasions ; whereas the Jus gladii , i. e. the Sovereign Power belongs to the King , by the ordinance of God , not the donation of the People : for he beareth the Sword as the Minister of God , from whom he receiv'd it , and not as the Minister of the People , who had no right to give it , because they never had it themselves , and consequently , could not bestow it upon another , it being also another maxim in Law , Nemo potest plus juris in alium transferre , quam ipse habet , No man can give another , what he has not himself . And be this sufficient , to have been said , against that humor , That the original of Government came from the People .

But to proceed , and omitting those traditional Kings , who are said to have reigned before the Flood , and of whom Xisuthur in whose time the Flood came , is supposed to be no other than Noah himself ; we have great reason to believe , that after the Flood , the sole Government was at first in Noah , and that whatever property in several , or share of Government in any part of the world afterwards , his Sons had , they had it by his sole allotment , and authority , and transmitted the same to their posterity , merely on that account ; those words seeming to import as much , These are the families of the Sons of Noah in their generations , after their Nations ; and by them were the Nations divided in the earth after the flood . And so the Son of Sirach , In the division of the Nations of the earth , he appointed a ruler over every People .

Besides , if we examin Families , ( a Family being in nature before a publick Society ) we shall find them no other , than so many exemplary Monarchies , wherein the Paterfamilias , and the first-born after him , exercised all kind of Government Ecclesiastical and Civil ( so Noah curs'd Cham , and bless'd Shem and Japhet ; Abraham cast out Hagar and Ismael ) and had the power of life and death in the Family . Patris , in liberis est regia potestas ; The Father has the authority of a King over his Children : for the better understanding of which , it will be requisite ( e're I go further ) to shew what the Paterfamilias truly was , and give some instances where he us'd this regal Authority .

As to the former , Paterfamilias imports no more than Familiae Pater , the Master , or good man of the house , who had the care of the Estate , and ordering the Family ; and so Tully uses it : C. Quintius , suarum rerum , Paterfamilias , & prudens , & attentus : which in English , we would call , a discreet and careful manager of his Estate . And in another place , Bono patrifamilias , colendi , aedificandi , & ratiocinandi , quidam usus , opus est ; had need of some skill in Plowing , Building , and keeping Accounts ; all which as yet , carry no more in it , than a bare care of the Family . And to the second , that this Paterfamilias had the power of life and death , Pater vitae necisque potestatem habebat in filios : A Father has the power of life and death over his Children , saith the same Tully ; not simply , and quatenus Pater , or Paterfamilias , which is the same , but by a regal Authority annex'd to it , by the right of primogeniture , whereby the elder was by the law of Nature , to rule and govern the younger , he being prior in donis , major in imperio : And so Aristotle , Parens , quod & amicus , & natu major est , praeficitur , quae species est regiae potestatis . In which sense , God speaking to Cain of his younger Brother Abel , saith , Sub te erit appetitus ejus , & tu dominaberis illi . Subject to thee shall be his desire , and thou shalt rule over him : which made Jacob so eager in supplanting his elder Brother Esau , of that birth-right ; and Elisha alludes to it , when he pray'd Elijah that a double portion of his spirit might be upon him , i. e. in comparison of the rest of the remaining Prophets , among whom he had obtained the place of an elder Brother , and to whom afterwards he became a Father .

The exercise of this regal Authority is found every where ; and because examples give a quicker impression than arguments , take a few for the rest ; by this power , Judah pass'd sentence upon Thamar ; and Abraham shew'd his readiness to Sacrifice his Son Isaac ; which , had he done , and had not withal had a regal Power in himself , which own'd no Superior , less than him , that gave him the command , what justification for him had that command been , among a people , unto whom at that time , the God of Abraham was altogether unknown .

In like manner Jephthah , who ( as 't is more than probable ) actually Sacrific'd his Daughter ; for the Text says he did with her according to his Vow , which was , If thou shalt deliver the children of Ammon into my hands , whatsoever cometh forth of my house to meet me , when I return ( holocaustum offeram Domino ) I will offer it up a burnt-offering , &c. and is the same word , which Isaac uses to his Father , Behold the fire and the wood , but where is ( victima Holocausti ) the sacrifice for a burnt-offering ? which is argument enough for me that her Father Sacrific'd her ; And that he did it by virtue of that regal power annex'd to him as Father , and not of any power deriv'd to him from the People , when they made him their Captain , will appear in this , that albeit such an Officer had an absolute , and independent Authority , when once elected , yet he was seldom chosen , but in times of imminent danger , which overpast , he retir'd to a private life again , as did Gideon , after he had deliver'd Israel from the Midianites ; and that 's the reason why we find such chasms and vacancies between the cessation of one Judg , and the election of another : and therefore , that Samuel judged Israel all his days was extraordinary ; and extraordinary examples neither make a rule , nor break one : so that in short , their Judges were the same in effect with the Roman Dictator some Centuries after , who was neither Sovereign Prince , nor Magistrate , but simply commissionated , on some sudden occasion for the making of War , suppressing Sedition , or the like , which ended , he was no more than a Subject himself .

Neither can that of Brutus the first Consul , his beheading his two Sons , be taken to be done by him as Consul , but as having the regal power of life and death , within his Family : for , besides that the Consuls were as yet in their Biggens , they never at any time afterward had any regal power , nor could they either make Laws , Peace , or War , or so much as whip a Citizen ( but in time of War ) without leave of the People , whose Subjects and Servants they were , and might be imprison'd by the least of the Tribunes of the People ; as was Philippus the Consul , by Drusus the Tribune , for that he interrupted him as he was speaking to the people : from all which I infer , that Families ( who as I said ) were before publick Societies , were under the absolute obedience of one , who had a regal power in him , and ruled as King over them : Howbeit in after times , when Fathers began to abuse that Authority , it was thought fit to abridg them of it , and place it in the hands of the more publick Father , the King ; a Kingdom being no other than a great Family , wherein the King hath a paternal power .

But to proceed ; as the world increased , so did these Families ; and being now extrafamiliated , became a part of the Common-wealth , and for want of room at home , swarm'd abroad into larger Families and Septs , but under the obedience still of one common head thereof : so Esau is called the Father of Edom , and the Dukes descended from him , were heads of Families , and Esau their chief . Hi Duces Edom habitantes in terra imperii sui , ipse Esau est pater : And we read , that Abraham when he pursued the four Kings in the relief of his Brothers Son , and Ally , Lot , set out 318 ( expeditos vernaculos ) light harnessed men at Arms , born in his own house : Yet hitherto , these may be rather called Reguli , than Reges , as being Princes of a narrow Territory , and much of the same , with the Kings we read of in the same Chapter , or the 31 Kings that were vanquish'd by Joshua .

But when in process of time Kings began to encroach upon their Neighbors , and that whatever it were they had already only shew'd them , how much more was wanting , then also were their Kingdoms enlarged . And the first of this kind we read of was Nimrod , whom Bodin calls a Lordly Monarch , and the Scripture a mighty Hunter , not only in that he was a great King , or as he has it , an oppressor ; but rather , and the more probable , that he was the first that usurp'd on his Neighbors rights , to enlarge his own Dominions ; that path which he first discovered , his Son Ninus further laid open with his Sword , and left it to his Heirs , who held it , for above a thousand years ; from them , the same Sword translated it to the Medes and Persians , and from them , to Alexander by the same way ; and continued by by the same right , among his Successors , till being crumbled by them into lesser morsels , ( yet still Monarchs ) it became the fitter for the Roman Swallow , and at last an Empire again , under Octavius Caesar ; that unwieldy lump of the Roman Republick , being but a concretion of heterogeneal parts , which ( like the toes of Iron , and Clay in Nebuchadnezzar's Image ) might stick together for a while , but never incorporate : but of this , more at large in proper place .

Nor were these four transcendent Monarchies the only instances of Monarchy , inasmuch as it hath gone out into all Lands ; and there is neither Speech nor Language , where it has not been heard among ' em . The Seythians , Aethiopians , Indians , Aegyptians , Armenians , Bactrians , &c. Nations famous in their Ages , were all govern'd by Monarchs ; and the Jews when they demanded a King over them , that they also might be like all the Nations , what other did they imply , but that all other Nations ( for ought at least they had heard ) were govern'd by Kings : The Cappadocians vanquisht by the Romans , had lost their King , and being persuaded by them to take a popular State , refus'd it , as declaring they could not live without a King. In short , where we meet the most ancient Kingdoms mentioned , we hear not ( so much as a Rat behind the Hangings ) the least word of Aristocracy , and as little of Democracy : That all Greece was anciently under Kings , was never doubted , and till long after Homer's time , Aristocracy was never dreamt of : And when the Roman Democracy began , is but to ask the next School-boy , when the Tarquins ended ; and therefore he that shall say of either of them , that ( in comparison ) they were more than of yesterday , may have it also said of himself , he knows nothing .

But what need I run so far back , when there are so many examples before us , even at our own doors ; And therefore to pass the Polonians , Danes , Moscovites , Tartars , Turks , Abissines , Moors , &c. yea , and the salvage People discover'd by the Spaniard , and our selves in the Indies , where all of them , as guided thereto , by the dictates of nature , liv'd under a Monarchy : The English , Scots , French , Spaniard , Irish , ( the first and last only excepted during the 12 years Fever of a Rebellion ) never knew other Government than that of Kings ; and therefore if we shall follow the advice of the Prophet , State super vias antiquas & videte quaenam sit via recta , & vera , & ambulate in ea , Stand upon the old paths , and consider which is the right and true way , and walk in it : Custom and usage claims that reverence from us , as that we give Monarchy the precedency of all other Governments , not only in respect of its antiquity , beyond any other State , but as most universally receiv'd throughout the world , and consequently , allow that of Aristotle ( otherwise no great friend to Monarchy ) Necesse est eam quae à prima maximeque divina cecidit , esse deterrimam . In short , the Schools may dispute it , but time hath try'd it : Other States may have curious frames but they are soon out of order ; But Monarchy like a work of nature is well compos'd both to grow and continue .