been a Parson, (I shall take leave to Christen my own Child first) I think that I was never so rash, nor so ill advised, as to speak any thing at aventure in so great a point, as the originall institution and divine right of Kings.
Secondly, I am sure I have not so little studied the Forms of Government, as to affirm any where in that Book against Calvin, as you call it, that all Kings be absolute. The second Sect. of the sixt Chapter, of that Book, being spent for the most part, in shewing the differences between conditio∣nal Kings, and an absolute Monarch.
And Thirdly, They must be as sorry Divines, and as bad Historians as my self, who ascribe the▪ abso∣lute Power, or the Divine right of Kings, to the first institution of a King amongst the Hebrews. For who knows not (if he know any thing in that kind) that there were Kings in Aegypt, and Assyria, as al∣so of Scycionia in Peleponesus, not long after the Flood; Kings of the Aborigines, and the Trojan race in Italy; in that of Athens, Argos and Micenae amongst the Greeks, of the Parthians, Syrians, &c. in the Greater, and of Lydia in the lesser Asia, long time before the Raign of Saul the first, King of the Hebrews: all which were absolute Monarchs in their several Countrys. And as once Tully said, Nulla gens tam barbara, that never Nation was so barba∣rous, but did acknowledge this principle, that there was a God; so will you hardly find any barbarous Nation, who acknowledge not the supream Go∣vernment of Kings: And how then all Nations should agree in giving themselves over to the power and Government of Kings; I believe none cannot