2.2 OF MONARCHY AND HEREDITARY SUCCESSION
Mankind being inally equals in the order of creation, the equality could only be destroyed by some subsequent circumstahe distins of rich, and poor, may in a great measure be ated for, and that without having recourse to the harsh, ill-sounding names of oppression and avarice.
Oppression is often the SEQUENCE, but seldom or he MEANS of riches; and though avarice will preserve a man from being ously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy.
But there is another and greater distin, for whio truly natural ious reason be assigned, and that is, the distin of men into KINGS and SUBJECTS. Male and female are the distins of nature, good and bad the distins of heaven; but how a raen came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth inquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind.
In the early ages of the world, acc to the scripture ology, there were no kings; the sequence of which was, there were no wars; it is the pride of kings which throw mankind into fusion. Holland without a king hath enjoyed more peace for this last tury than any of the monarchial govers in Europe. Antiquity favours the same remark; for the quiet and rural lives of the first patriarchs hath a happy something in them, which vanishes away when we e to the history of Jewish royalty.
Gover by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the .
It was the most prosperous iion the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The Heathens paid divine honours to their deceased kings, and the Christian world hath improved on the plan, by doing the same to their living ones. How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust! As the exalting one man so greatly above the rest ot be justified on the equal rights of nature, so her it be defended ohority of scripture; for the will of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon and the prophet Samuel, expressly disapproves of gover by kings. All anti-monarchical parts of scripture have been very smoothly glossed over in monarchical govers, but they undoubtedly merit the attention of tries which have their govers yet to form.
RENDER UNTO CAESAR THE THINGS WHICH ARE CAESARS is the scripture doe of courts, yet it is no support of monarchical gover, for the Jews at that time were without a king, and in a state of vassalage to the Romans.
Now three thousand years passed away from the Mosaic at of the creation, till the Jews under a national delusion requested a king.
Till then their form of gover (except iraordinary cases, where the Almighty interposed) was a kind of republic administered by a judge and the elders of the tribes. Kings they had none, and it was held sinful to aowledge any being uhat title but the Lord of Hosts. And when a man seriously reflects on the idolatrous homage which is paid to the persons of kings, he need not wohat the Almighty, ever jealous of his honour, should disapprove of a form of gover whipiously ihe prerogative of heaven.
Monarchy is ranked in scripture as one of the sins of the Jews, for which a curse in reserve is denounced against them.
The history of that transa is worth attending to.
The children of Israel being oppressed by the Midianites, Gideon marched again