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sweat of thy face, shalt thou eat thy bread, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return, v. 19. It will perhaps be answered again in favour of our author, that these words are not spoken personally to Adam, but in him, as their representative, to all mankind, this being a curse upon mankind, because of the fall. 46. God, I believe, speaks differently from men, because he speaks with more truth, more certainty: but when he vouchsafes to speak to men, I do not think he speaks differently from them, in crossing the rules of language in use amongst them: this would not be to condescend to their capacities, when he humbles himself to speak to them, but to lose his design in speaking what, thus spoken they could not understand. And yet thus must we think of God, if the interpretations of scripture, necessary to maintain our author's doctrine, must be received for good: for by the ordinary rules of language, it will be very hard to understand what God says, if what he speaks here, in the singular number, to Adam, must be understood to be spoken to all mankind, and what he says in the plural, number, Gen. i. 26, and 28. must be understood of Adam alone, exclusive of all others, and what he says to Noah and his sons jointly, must be understood to be meant to Noah alone, Gen. ix.

47. Farther it is to be noted, that these words here of Gen. iii. 16. which our author calls the original grant of government, were not spoken to Adam, neither indeed was there any grant in them made to Adam, but a punishment laid upon Eve and if we will take them as they were directed in particular to her, or in her, as their representative, to all other women, they will at most concern the female sex only, and import no more, but that subjection they should ordinarily be in to their husbands: but there is here no more law to oblige a woman to such a subjection, if the circumstances either of her condition, or contract with her husband, should exempt her from it, than there is, that she should bring forth her children in sorrow and pain, if there could be found a remedy for it, which is also a part of the same curse upon her: for the whole verse runs thus, Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply 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. It would, I think, have been a hard matter for any body, but our author, to have found out a grant of monarchical government to Adam in these words, which were neither spoke to, nor of him: neither will any one, I suppose, by these words, think the weaker sex as by a law, so subjected to the curse contained in them, that it is their duty not to endeavour to avoid it. And will any one say, that Eve, or any other woman, sinned, if she were brought to bed without those multiplied pains God threatens her here with? or that either of our queens, Mary or Elizabeth, had they married any of their subjects, had been by this text put into a political subjection to him? or that he thereby should have had monarchical rule over her? God, in this text, gives not, that I see, any authority to Adam over Eve, or to men over their wives, but only foretels what should be the woman's lot, how by his providence he would order it so, that she should be subject to her husband, as we see that generally the laws of mankind and customs of nations have ordered it so; and there is, I grant, a foundation in nature for it.

48. Thus when God says of Jacob and Esau, that the elder should serve the younger, Gen. xxv. 23. no body supposes that God hereby made Jacob Esau's sovereign, but foretold what should de facto come to pass.

But if these words here spoke to Eve must needs be understood as a law to bind her and all other women to subjection, it can be no other subjection than what every wife owes her husband; and then if this be the original grant of government and the foundation of monarchical power, there will be as many monarchs as there are husbands: if therefore these words give any power to Adam, it can be only a conjugal power, not political; the power that every husband hath to order the things of private concernment in his family, as proprietor of the goods and land there, and to have his will take place before that of his wife in all things of their common concernment; but not a political power of life and death over her, much less over any body else.

49. This I am sure: if our author will have this text to be a grant, the original grant of government, political govern

ment, he ought to have proved it by some better arguments than by barely saying, that thy desire shall be unto thy husband, was a law whereby Eve, and all that should come of her, were subjected to the absolute monarchical power of Adam and his heirs. Thy desire shall be to thy husband, is too doubtful an expression, of whose signification interpreters are not agreed, to build so confidently on, and in a matter of such moment, and so great and general concernment but our author, according to his way of writing, having once named the text, concludes presently without any more ado, that the meaning is as he would have it. Let the words rule and subject be but found in the text or margent, and it immediately signifies the duty of a subject to his prince; the relation is changed, and though God says husband, Sir Robert will have it king; Adam has presently absolute monarchical power over Eve, and not only over Eve, but all that should come of her, though the scripture says not a word of it, nor our author a word to prove it. But Adam must for all that be an absolute monarch, and so down to the end of the chapter. And here I leave my reader to consider, whether my bare saying, without offering any reasons to evince it, that this text gave not Adam that absolute monarchical power, our author supposes, be not suthcient to destroy that power, as his bare assertion is to establish it, since the text mentions neither prince nor people, speaks nothing of absolute or monarchical power, but the subjection of Eve to Adam, a wife to her husband.

And be

that would trace our author so all through, would make a short and sufficient an swer to the greatest part of the grounds he proceeds on, and abundantly confute them by barely denying; it being a sufficient answer to assertions without proof, to deny them without giving a reason. And therefore should I have said nothing but barely denied, that by this text the supreme power was settled and founded by God himself, in the fatherhood, limited to monarchy, and that to Adam's person and heirs, all which our author notably concludes from these words, as may be seen in the same page, Observations, 244. it had been a sufficient answer: should I have desired any sober man only to have read the text, and considered to whom, and on what occasion it was spoken, he would no doubt have wondered how our author found out monarchical absolute power in it, had he not had an exceeding good faculty to find it himself, where he could not shew it others. And thus we have examined the two places of scripture, all that I remember our author brings to prove Adam's sovereignty, that supremacy; which he says, it was God's ordinance should be unlimited in Adam, and as large as all the acts of his will, Observations, 254, viz. Gen. i. 28. and Gen. i. 16. one whereof signifies only the subjection of the inferior ranks of creatures to mankind, and the other the subjection that is due from a wife to her husband, both far enough from that which subjects owe the governors of political societies.

[To be continued.]

THE CHARACTER OF THE WISEST MEN. [First Published 1696.]

[FROM LORD SOMERS'S TRACTS. 4to. Vol. IV.]

THEY are persons of a moderate and healing temper, of catholic and comprehensive charity: they do not baptize their religion with the name of a sect, nor espouse the interest of a party, but love all good men that fear God and work righteousness. They are not guilty of the Corinthian vanity, in crying up a Paul,

VOL. IX.

an Apollos, or a Cephas, but look upon it as the great design of christianity to make men good, and where it hath not that effect, they know it matters not what church such a man is of, because a bad man saved in none. They shun the dangerous extremes, and keep the regular mean, and in

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can be

divine worship prefer a reverend decency before pompous superstition, or popular confusion, neither bowing down to the altar of Baal, nor admiring the calves of Bethel.

They are true primitive christians, and think it lawful to hold communion with any true church of Christ that is sound in the substantials of religion, notwithstanding some circumstantial differences in the external modes of administration: and then they suspect it sinful and schismatical to separate from any true christians, who agree in apostolical doctrine, and maintain the discipline of the purest ages.

They prove all things, and hold fast only that which is good, and are persuaded those christians are most in the right, who choose out of all parties whatsoever things are just, &c. and not they that think every thing to be so that is maintained by their own party.

They place religion more in the serious practice of piety, than in the observance of ceremonious forms; they are neither fond of needless rituals, nor yet molested with groundless scruples, but long for the Philadelphian state of the church, wishing that all the world might with one mouth glorify the eternal God.

They pay a great deference to antiquity, yet they are not so fond of error as to fall in love with it merely for its grey hairs, but make use of their own reason to judge of the rcasonings of men: though they apply themselves to spiritual guides, yet they love to enquire the way to Sion, and not follow them in the dark, except they carry a lanthorn in their

bands.

They refer the decision of all the differences amongst good christians primarily to the sense and meaning of the holy scriptures: and they know every man must judge for him self, therefore where they see men do all they can to find out the truth, to please God, and to save their own

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souls, they give them liberty of interpreting, as knowing themselves not to be infallible.

They know there are many controversies amongst christians, of that intricacy, that the day of judgment must determine who are most in the right; therefore they dare not judge men's final estates, or of the sincerity of their hearts by their speculative opinions, or the different relishes of things, because every man must believe what he can, and not what he will.

They admire to see some christians so egregiously mistaken in the notion of true catholicism, as to confine salvation to their particular communion, and they think it strange to hear men contend for an infallible guide, when Moses and the prophets, Christ and his apostles, do with one consent declare, that the way to the blessedness of the righteous, is by observing the rule and exercise of holy living, from a principle of divine life.

They never charge other men's doctrines with such odious consequences as they never intended, nor asperse their persons with such invidious names as they never deserved; but make charitable allowances for their different educations, constitutions, and apprehensions of things, supposing that other men may differ from them with the same sincerity they differ from others, and sometimes from themselves.

They are for a religious loyalty, and prefer the wisdom of public authority before their own private judg ments, in all such matters as are not determined by the sovereign pleasure of their maker; and if in any thing they differ from the wisdom of their superiors, they do it with great modesty and reservation, and are always ready to change their minds when better information leads them to it, not thinking they undervalue their judgments by so doing.

They are afraid of being infected

with the heresy of bigottism, and have great cause to fear, that if the merciful God should damn us all for such things for which straitlaced christians condemn one another, none could be saved. They think there is no particular human form of ecclesiastical polity so acceptable to the great God, as the exercise of mutual charity under our different forms.

They neither make their opinions, articles of faith, nor their modes terms of communion; but believe those principles, and practice those precepts, which wise and good men are all agreed in, well knowing if they should happen to be mistaken in those things wherein they differ, they could not lose the way to heaven, whilst they sincerely love God, believe in Christ, and obey the motions of the holy Spirit.

They are of peaceable and reconciling dispositions and neither call for fire from heaven, nor kindle fires upon earth, to destroy all those that follow not them; as well knowing that truth cannot be engraven in the minds of men with the points of swords, nor can their understandings be illuminated with flaming faggots.

They neither make the way to heaven broader nor narrower than the head of the pillars of the universal church have made it: and they walk on soberly, righteously, and godly in that path, which upon great consideration they take to be the right, without rudely jogling those whom they fear to be in the wrong. They think the best way to find out to what mother the child of truth

belongs, is to make use of Solomon's test, viz. To give up the cause to them that first lay down the sword of division: when one party saith, Lo here is Christ in this church, and another saith, Lo he is there; they believe what Christ himself hath told them, that where two or three are met together in his name, there he is in the midst of them."

They do not think their zeal lukewarm except it burn up their discretion, but can join the prudence of the serpent with the innocency of the dove; and are grieved to observe men contend so eagerly about the pinacles of the temple, as that they threaten to overturn the foundations of the church.

They take more pains to make good their baptismal covenant, than to dispute about the manner of its administration, as if they were baptized with the waters of strife; and they are more frequent in a devout participation of the Lord's supper, than in metaphysical contests about the real presence. They know there is nothing required of man as necessary to salvation, but what is clearly revealed and beyond all dispute.

They choose rather to take up the cross of Christ, than wrangle about it; and more solicitously observe the complexion of their own souls, than the colour of ministers garments: nor do they so contend about the number of the elect, as to reprobate themselves for want of charity; but endeavour to perform the whole duty of man, in so doing they know they are in the way to the saints' everlasting rest.

AREOPAGITICA:

A SPEECH FOR THE LIBERTY OF UNLICENSED PRINTING:

TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND.

By JOIIN MILTON.
[Continued from page 26.]

As therefore the state of man now s; what wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear without the knowledge of evil? He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her habits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet perfer that which is truly better, he is the true warfaring christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue unexercised, and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather; that which purifies us in trial, and trial is by what is contrary. That virtue therefore which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, and knows not the utmost that vice promises to her followers, and rejects it, is but a blank virtue, not a pure; her whiteness is but an excremental whiteness; which was the reason why our sage and serious poet Spenser, (whom I dare be known to think a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas,) describing true temperance under the person of Guion, brings him in with his palmer through the cave of Mammon, and the bower of earthly bliss, that he might see and know, and yet abstain. Since therefore the knowledge and survey of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely, and with less danger scout into the regions of sin and falsity, than by reading all manner of tractates, and hearing all manner of reason? And

this is the benefit which may be had of books promiscuously read. But of the harm that may result hence, three kinds are usually reckoned. First, is feared the infection that may spread; but then, all human learning and controversy in religious points must remove out of the world, yea, the bible itself; for that ofttimes relates blasphemy not nicely: it describes the carnal sense of wicked men not unelegantly; it brings in holiest men passionately murmuring against providence through all the arguments of Epicurus; in other great disputes it answers dubiously and darkly to the common reader; and ask a Talmudist what ails the modesty of his marginal Keri, that Moses and all the prophets cannot persuade him to pronounce the textual Chetiv. For these causes we all know the bible itself put by the papist into the first rank of prohibited books. The ancientest fathers must be next removed, as Clement of Alexandria, and that Eusebian book of evangelic preparation, transmitting our ears through a hoard of heathenish obscenities to receive the gospel. Who finds not that Irenæus, Epiphanius, Jerom, and others, discover more heresies than they well confute, and that oft for heresy which is the truer opinion? Nor boots it say for these, and all the heathen writers of greatest infection if it must be thought so, with whom is bound up the life of human learning, that they writ in an unknown tongue, so long as we are sure those languages are known as well to the worst of men, who are both most able, and most diligent to instil the poison they suck, first into the courts

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