And so lunatics and
ideots are never set free from the government of their parents;
children, who are not as yet come unto those years whereat they
may have; and innocents which are excluded by a natural defect
from ever having; thirdly, madmen, which for the present cannot
possibly have the use of right reason to guide themselves, have
for their guide, the reason that guideth other men which are
tutors over them, to seek and procure their good for them, says
Hooker, Eccl. Pol. lib. i. sec. 7. All which seems no more than
that duty, which God and nature has laid on man, as well as other
creatures, to preserve their offspring, till they can be able to
shift for themselves, and will scarce amount to an instance or
proof of parents regal authority.
Sec. 61. Thus we are born free, as we are born rational;
not that we have actually the exercise of either: age, that
brings one, brings with it the other too. And thus we see how
natural freedom and subjection to parents may consist together,
and are both founded on the same principle. A child is free
by his father's title, by his father's understanding, which is to
govern him till he hath it of his own. The freedom of a man at
years of discretion, and the subjection of a child to his
parents, whilst yet short of that age, are so consistent, and
so distinguishable, that the most blinded contenders for
monarchy, by right of fatherhood, cannot miss this
difference; the most obstinate cannot but allow their
consistency: for were their doctrine all true, were the right
heir of Adam now known, and by that title settled a monarch in
his throne, invested with all the absolute unlimited power Sir
Robert Filmer talks of; if he should die as soon as his heir
were born, must not the child, notwithstanding he were never so
free, never so much sovereign, be in subjection to his mother and
nurse, to tutors and governors, till age and education brought
him reason and ability to govern himself and others? The
necessities of his life, the health of his body, and the
information of his mind, would require him to be directed by the
will of others, and not his own; and yet will any one think, that
this restraint and subjection were inconsistent with, or spoiled
him of that liberty or sovereignty he had a right to, or gave
away his empire to those who had the government of his nonage?
This government over him only prepared him the better and sooner
for it.
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