government theory

Chapter 5 Concerning Adam's Sovereignty by God's Gift (1)
twenty one.The length of our discussion in the preceding passage was not due to strong arguments and subtle refutations, but to confusion of words and ambiguity of meaning.Now that we have finished that passage, let us turn to his second argument concerning the dominion of Adam.Our author, quoting Mr. Selden, tells us, "Adam, by the gift of God (Genesis, Chapter 21, No. 1, verse 20), was the co-master of all things, and he himself had no such personal dominion before that. , just as his children could not have this right without his grant." This assertion of our author, Mr. Selden, "is in harmony with the history of the Holy Scriptures and with the reason of nature."And he said in the preface to his "Comment on Aristotle's "Political Treatise"": "The first government in the world was a monarchy in which the father of all mankind was king. on the earth, subdued the world, acquired dominion over all living things, and thus became sovereign over the whole world; his descendants had no right to possess anything except by his authorization, permission, or succession to him; the Psalms The author says: 'He gave the world to the children of men', which shows that the title of prince is derived from the fatherhood."

twenty two.Before examining this argument and the text of Scripture on which it is based, the reader must note that, in the usual way of our author, he begins with one meaning and ends with another. a meaning.Here, for example, he begins by saying, "Adam had property or personal dominion by divine gift," and concludes, "This shows that the title of prince derives from his fatherhood."

twenty three.But let's look at his argument. The original text of the "Bible" says this: "God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air, and all kinds of things that walk on the earth. Creatures." ("Genesis" Chapter 23No.1 Section 20) Based on this, our author concluded: "Since Adam obtained the dominion over all living things, he became the monarch of the whole world." It must be meant that this gift of God, on the one hand, may have given Adam property over the earth and all lower or irrational beings, or "personal dominion," as our author says, so that he On the other hand, it may also be that he is given the power to dominate and rule over all creatures on the ground, including his children, so he is a monarch.The above two meanings must be one of them.

As Mr. Selden puts it in the right words in his article: "Adam became the common master of all things." Here we can clearly understand what he means, that what he here promises to Adam is only Ownership, so he doesn't say a word about Adam's "sovereignty".But our author says: "Therefore Adam became the sovereign of the whole world." This actually refers to the supreme ruler of all people in the world, so based on this bestowment, Adam must be established as such a ruler.If our author had not meant this, he could have said very clearly: "Therefore Adam became the proprietor of the whole world." But on this point, our author needs to ask the reader's forgiveness, because the clear and definite statement Not everywhere it serves his purpose, and the reader should not expect him to write as unambiguously as Mr. Selden or any other author.

twenty four.Therefore, in refutation of our author's doctrine that Adam was sovereign over the world, I would like to point out:

First, based on this gift ("Genesis" Chapter 1No. 20), God did not give Adam any direct power over his children, over his own kind, or even over human beings, so he did not base on This charter becomes the ruler or "monarch".

Second, based on this gift, God gave him the same rights as all human beings, not "personal dominion" over lower creatures, so he cannot become a "monarch" because of the ownership given to him here.

25．First, if we examine the words of the original text, we can see that this gift ("Genesis" Chapter 1 No. 20) did not give Adam power over human beings.Since no written grant can give more than what is expressly expressed, let us now see which words in the original text can be understood as man or the descendant of Adam.If there is, I think it can only be this sentence-"all kinds of walking creatures". The Hebrew word for this word is bestiamreptantem in Latin.For this sentence, the "Bible" itself has done the best explanation.God created fish and birds on the fifth day, and at the beginning of the sixth day He created the irrational creatures on the land. The "Bible" records this event: "Let the earth produce creatures, each according to its kind; Livestock, reptiles, and wild animals, each according to its kind." He also said: "God created the wild animals of the earth according to their kinds, and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that moves on the earth according to its kind." When it came to the creation of beasts on earth, God first used the general term "creature" to refer to them all, and then divided them into three levels: (70) Livestock, that is, animals that are tame or can be domesticated, and thus become certain animals. (9) It is translated as "beast" in our "Bible", while the 70-man translation of the Greek "Old Testament Bible" translates it as "beast", which is the same as the current record given to Adam. The same word translated "creature" in the main dispensational text was used when this gift was restored to Noah (Genesis, Chapter 70, verse [-]), where, It is also translated as "beast"; ([-]) the third level is reptiles, used to represent, this is the word used in the original text and translated as "walking", but in the previous chapters it was translated as "Crawling", the [-]-person translation of the Greek "Old Testament Bible" will all translate it as "reptiles".It can be seen from this that the word "walking creatures" we use when translating God's gift refers to two kinds of terrestrial creatures that appeared in the history of creation—beasts and reptiles. The same is true of its interpretation in the translation.

26．After God created the irrational animals in the world, he divided them into three categories according to their habitat: "fish in the sea", "birds in the air" and "creatures on land", and then divided the third category For "livestock, wild animals and reptiles".Next, God considered creating human beings and endowing them with the right to rule over the terrestrial world.Then, he summed up the creatures in the three realms again, but in the land realm, he eliminated the second-level animals, that is, wild beasts.However, where it is said that God began to really implement his ideas and give mankind this kind of dominion, the original text of the "Bible" mentions "fish of the sea and birds of the air" and uses words to represent beasts and reptiles. The living creatures on the ground, just translate it as "walking creatures" and leave out the livestock.In the two places mentioned above, although the word "beast" is omitted in one place, and the word "beast" is omitted in the other place, but since God practiced in one place, he has declared to have designed it in the other place. plan, then we can only understand that the referents in these two places are the same.In the passage quoted here we have only to illustrate those terrestrial irrational animals which have been created and differentiated into three different classes of "beast", "beast" and "reptile". How it is actually placed under the dominion of human beings according to the predetermined design.There is not a trace in these words of any far-fetched understanding that God gave a man power over others, and Adam power over his descendants.

27．In the second verse of Chapter 9 of Genesis, this kind of text reappears, when God restores this franchise to Noah and his sons, he also gives them access to the "birds of the air" and "the birds of the sea". The dominion over "fishes" and "creatures of the land", where "creatures of the land" are expressed by and ("beasts and reptiles"), which is the same as the previous ("Genesis" Chapter 1No.20 Section 1 ) is the same as the translation of "all living things that walk on the ground" in the original text.But this sentence can never be understood as including human beings, because this kind of gift was given to all human beings living at that time, that is, Noah and his sons, not just given to some people, let them dominate other people , this point is more clear from the following words and sentences.Here, God gave them "everything that moves" (the phrase used in Chapter 20No.1, Section 20) as food.According to the above, we can clearly see that God's gift (Chapter 1No. 20) and designation to Adam, and His later gift to Noah and his sons, all these refer to and include, It happened to be the creatures that He created at the beginning of the fifth and sixth days, and also, as recorded in Chapter 26 No. [-]-[-], namely, all kinds of irrational animals in the water and land of the earth.

Although in the account of their creation none of the names used for them were used in any of the subsequent grants, some words were omitted in one place and others in another. omitted.I therefore think that man cannot be included in this bestowal, without doubt, and Adam is not given any power over his own kind.When God created all the irrational creatures on the land, he listed them and called them "beasts of the earth", "livestock and reptiles"; within the noun.So, whether or not we understand the Hebrew phrases correctly, in the Genesis and the verses that follow, these phrases cannot be considered to include human beings, especially the Hebrew ones. Character.

If we must understand God’s gift to Adam as including human beings, it is obviously contradictory with the statements about human beings in Genesis. These statements are mainly found in Chapter 6No.20 and Chapter 7No.14 of Genesis. Section, Section No.20, Section No.20, Section 8 No.17 and Section No.19.If, as our author intends, God, by giving Adam dominion over all the moving creatures of the earth, thus made all men the slaves of Adam and his offspring (Chapter 1 No. His monarchical power was raised to another level, and the world was convinced that monarchs can also eat their subjects, because just as he gave Adam the right to rule over them, God gave Noah and his descendants (Chapter 20 verse 9) to eat all The full power of things that move.The Hebrew text used in the book is exactly the same in both places.

28．We may think that David understood the place as well as our author did about the gift of God and the rights of kings in this passage.Thus says the learned and wise Ensweis, who finds no such dispensation of sovereign power in the eighth psalm.This is what David said: "You made him, man, the offspring of man, a little lower than angels; all the birds of the sea, and all the fish of the sea, and all who pass by the sea are subject to him.” In these words, apart from referring to the dominion of all human beings over lower creatures, if someone can find out that there is also a person who has power over others. So it seems to me that he can, by this rare discovery, be one of those "apparent sovereigns," as Sir Robert calls it.Now, I think the point is quite clear, that God gave Adam "dominion over every living thing that walks on the earth" did not mean that he gave him sovereign power over his own kind.With regard to this layer, I will show it more fully in the second point I shall make below.

(End of this chapter)