But that this was not by any paternal right, but
only by the consent of his children, is evident from hence, that
no body doubts, but if a stranger, whom chance or business had
brought to his family, had there killed any of his children, or
committed any other fact, he might condemn and put him to death,
or other-wise have punished him, as well as any of his children;
which it was impossible he should do by virtue of any paternal
authority over one who was not his child, but by virtue of that
executive power of the law of nature, which, as a man, he had a
right to: and he alone could punish him in his family, where the
respect of his children had laid by the exercise of such a power,
to give way to the dignity and authority they were willing should
remain in him, above the rest of his family.
(*It is no improbable opinion therefore, which the
archphilosopher was of, that the chief person in every houshold
was always, as it were, a king: so when numbers of housholds
joined themselves in civil societies together, kings were the
first kind of governors amongst them, which is also, as it
seemeth, the reason why the name of fathers continued still in
them, who, of fathers, were made rulers; as also the ancient
custom of governors to do as Melchizedec, and being kings, to
exercise the office of priests, which fathers did at the first,
grew perhaps by the same occasion.
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