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THE POLITICAL USE OF THE BIBLE IN EARLY MODERN BRITAIN: Filmer argued for absolute monarchy from the creation of Adam and his pre-fall relationship to Eve and their children; Adam was divinely ordained “the father of all mankind” and in whom the “originall grant of Government” was first deposited, and in whom was “the fountain of all power” given. The “law for obedience to government” is found in “honor they Father” which Adam was the first, and because it was given to him alone, he was, so to speak, the first fatherking, whose lineage produced successive fathers and therefore successive kings. If Adam’s grant of absolute authority came by “right of fatherhood from God,” and not by conveyance through consent, the “people have not right or title to alter and dispose of it otherwise.” Thus, “the form of Monarchy must be preferr’d above other forms.” 49 Filmer understood Adam’s authority as pre-fall, claiming that Scripture locates the origin of government “in the fatherly power, and therefore we find the Commandement that enjoynes obedience to Superiours given in the tearms of Honour thy Father.” Thus, “not onely the power or right of government, but the form of the power of governing, and the person having that power, are all the ordinance of God.” Adam, as the “first Father had not onely simply power, but power Monarchicall” because “he was a Father immediately from God.” Adam “was Monarch of the World, though he had no Subjects.” Government could not fully exist “untill there were Subjects.” Nevertheless, “by the right of nature it was due to Adam to be Governour of his posterity.” “Adam was a King from his Creation,” “in habit” only, “not in act,” and “Eve was subject to Adam before he sinned.” 50 Interestingly, the Genesis 4:7 text which relates the death of Abel at the hand of Cain was also read politically to mean that the younger brother would serve the elder, and thus establish a pattern of patriarchal authority. The similar linguistic styles of Genesis 3:16 and 4:7 have led to various and interesting English translations. The NIV, like most modern translations, treats Genesis 4:7 as Cain’s confrontation with sin: “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” The 1611 version of the King James Bible treats the personal pronoun commonly translated “it” in modern versions as “he,” and as an antecedent for Abel, and not sin: “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and 49 [Sir Robert Filmer], The anarchy of a limited or mixed monarchy (London, 1648), 6-7. 50 Ibid.,13. See also 32-39 where Filmer references a significant section of Observations, and where he addresses Parker’s analysis of the origin of government, doctrine of consent, and limited government. if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.” 51 The Genesis 4:7 passage was read this way by Dudley Digges the younger. Digges entered into the debate against Parker’s Observations in November of 1642 with An answer to a printed book intituled, Observations. Digges argues against the right of political liberty, or consent, by invoking original relational correspondences between family and civil government. He asserts that monarchy is more highly preferred because it represents “the Originall of Governments” and “God was the immediate donor of Regall power.” Monarchy is first manifest in Adam’s original “power or providence” over his own prodigy. Given the long-life spans of the Patriarchs, coupled with rapidly increasing populations, they literally peopled “a Nation out of their own loynes,” and “their subjects” were “their children.” Just as children lack the natural ability to choose their fathers, and since the first fathers also peopled their first subjects who were also their children, subjects do not have a natural right to choose rulers any more than children have a natural right to choose their fathers. Thus “Regal power sprang first from Paternall,” 52 monarchy was the first form of government, and consent unnecessary to its establishment. Digges attacked Observations again with a smaller tract entitled A review of the observations upon some of his majesties late answers and expresses published from Oxford in April, 1643. Digges now draws out the Genesis 4:7 passage in support of patriarchy and primogeniture. Through “propogation, and in propogating,” God “gave the Rule and Soveraignty of the issues propagated, to the Father of whom they were propagated.” With this, He also “gave the Rule of all the younger (and consequently of their descendants too) unto the firstborne, (as we may see where God tells Caine; Thy Brother shall be subject to thee, and thou shalt beare rule over him.” Digges claimed all individuals “were born Subjects, either to him that naturally was their Father, or to him that by right of primogeniture was representatively the Father.” 53 Digges penned another tract entitled The unlawfulnesse of subjects taking up armes against their soveraigne (Oxford, 51 See David Norton, A Textual History of the King James Bible (Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 83, note 7, and p. 90, note 15. The 1769 edition is also the same as the 1611. This translation appears to have remained unchanged in the Cambridge editions of 1629 and 1638. 52 [Dudley Digges], An answer to a printed book, intituled, observations upon some of his majesties late answers and expresses (Oxford, November, 1642), 3, 4-5. 53 [Dudley Digges], A review of the observations upon some of his majesties late answers and expresses (Oxford, April 15, 1643), 2. 14
ROYALISTS, REPUBLICANS, FIFTH MONARCHISTS AND LEVELLERS 1643) where he again confirmed that regal authority rests upon patriarchal government, but with a new interpretive twist of the Scriptures by way of Exodus 20:5. Digges claimed that kings are due a supreme allegiance over earthly fathers because kings embody the sum of paternal authority by transference to a Commonwealth. Now, the “King is . . . a common Father to all,” and “what ever power Fathers have over, and consequently whatsoever honor as an effect of this power, was due to them from their children, he hath right to challenge the same of all.” The very creation of a “Common-wealth” actually “united all particular paternall powers in Him” such that supreme obedience is now due to a king. “For divine precept stands in full force, Honour thy Father, &c, and therefore we must confesse, . . he that begot us is not so much our Father, as the King is.” 54 Sir John Spelman attacked Parker’s Observations with A view of a printed book intitled Observations upon his majesties late expresses (Oxford, January 1642), which also includes patriarchal arguments. Spelman characterises “Princes” as “Gods, Lords, Fathers, &c. and that therefore subjects must stand by the same relation; as Creatures, Servants, Children, &c.” He then mirrors family government with civil government, claiming “that Domesticall government is the very Image and modell of Soveraignty in a Common-weale.” 55 Royal Prerogative Humanly Derived but Divinely Constituted A Royalist assumed that if a king’s right to rule rested on Adam’s original political prerogative, then his (king’s) authority was not derivative, or subject to popular consent. A doctrine of human consent was not essential to the relational similitude between the establishment of the family and civil government. This issue of consent, or political liberty, was already on the periphery in Royalist arguments presented above. Since consent is unnecessary for the operation of family government, by analogy, it is also unnecessary for the function of monarchical governments. As J.P Sommerville notes, absolute Royalists typically asserted that a king could not be restricted by any sort of “contractual limitations” and consequently be removed from authority if he governed contrary to such. Royalists did not dispense altogether with consent; a people’s selection of a king did not contradict God’s donation of authority to him. The people’s part was procedural, while God’s was 54 [Dudley Digges], The vnlawfulnesse of subjects taking up armes against their soveraigne (Oxford, 1643), 61-62. 55 [John Spelman], A view of a printed book intitled Observations upon his majesties late expresses (Oxford, January, 1642), 9. substantive. When Royalists contended that the power of a king rested in God alone, they meant that it was not “derived from an act of transference by the people,” despite their selection. Consent initiates the act of governance, but is not its authoritative foundation. Authority represents a divinely ordained position or prerogative which must be actualised by human choice and ordinance; the substance of authority is not derived from consent but God. A wife may have chosen her husband, but his authority as a husband and father is derived from God; her consent did not transfer such authority to him. It follows then that if a king’s power is divinely “derived,” then “to God alone he was accountable for its exercise.” 56 There is one particular absolute Royalist who systematically established a doctrine of divine civil ordination and whose work attacked Observations. The anonymously written Sacro-Sancta regum majestas appeared in January, 1644. It was eventually attributed to John Maxwell, the Bishop of Killa and Achonry, by Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661). 57 As a matter of fact, Rutherford seems to have undertaken a thorough rewrite of Lex, Rex as a “detailed refutation” of Sacro- Sancta, which he published in October, 1644 as Lex, Rex, or the law and the prince. 58 Maxwell argued that a king’s authority did not originate from the body of the people as a collective, or from Parliament as its representatives. Rather, it was extended solely from God. Maxwell claimed that “Kings are constituted immediately by God,” asserting that “God is the immediate Author of Sovereignty in the King, and that he is no Creature of the People’s making.” 59 The doctrines of popular consent and derivation find no place in the patriarchal authority of Adam; “God fixed Government in the Person of Adam, before Evah or any else came into the world; and how Government shall be.” 60 His argument is very similar to Filmer’s here, in that Adam’s governing authority pre-dated the fall. 56 J.P. Sommerville,“Absolutism and Royalism,” 355. 57 Mendle explains that Samuel Rutherford disclosed Maxwell as the author, though Parker was not aware of Maxwell’s authorship. See Henry Parker and the English Civil War, 123. 58 John Coffey, Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions: The Mind of Samuel Rutherford (Cambridge University Press, 1997), 148. Rutherford directly attacked Maxwell’s patriarchalism. 59 [Maxwell], Sacro-sancta regum majestas, 19. 60 Ibid., 33. See also p. 85: “Is it not very considerable that God did not make Evah of the earth, as he did Adam, but made her of the man; and declareth too, made her for man? It is more then probable then, God in his wisdome did not thinke it fit (that he was able to doe it I hope none dare to deny) to make two independents, and liked best of all governments of mankind, The Soveraignty of one, and that with that extent, that both wife and posterity should submit and subject themselves to him.” 15
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