Also (say they) in time past,
when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that reddest out and
broughtest in Israel, and the Lord said unto thee, Thou shalt
feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain over Israel.
Sec. 110. Thus, whether a family by degrees grew up into a
common-wealth, and the fatherly authority being continued on to
the elder son, every one in his turn growing up under it, tacitly
submitted to it, and the easiness and equality of it not
offending any one, every one acquiesced, till time seemed to have
confirmed it, and settled a right of succession by prescription:
or whether several families, or the descendants of several
families, whom chance, neighbourhood, or business brought
together, uniting into society, the need of a general, whose
conduct might defend them against their enemies in war, and the
great confidence the innocence and sincerity of that poor but
virtuous age, (such as are almost all those which begin
governments, that ever come to last in the world) gave men one of
another, made the first beginners of commonwealths generally put
the rule into one man's hand, without any other express
limitation or restraint, but what the nature of the thing, and
the end of government required: which ever of those it was that
at first put the rule into the hands of a single person, certain
it is no body was intrusted with it but for the public good and
safety, and to those ends, in the infancies of commonwealths,
those who had it commonly used it.
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