Thus, as under the law, the privilege of birthright was nothing but a double portion: so we see that before Moses, in the patriarchs time, from whence our author pretends to take his model, there was no knowledge, no thought, that birthright gave rule or empire, paternal or kingly authority, to anyone over his brethren. If this be not plain enough in the story of Isaac and Ishmael, he that will look into 1 Chron. 5:1. may there read these words: “Reuben was the firstborn; but forasmuch as he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was given unto the sons of Joseph, the son of Israel: and the genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright; for Judah prevailed above his brethren, and of him came the chief ruler; but the birthright was Joseph’s.” What this birthright was, Jacob blessing Joseph, Gen. 48:22. telleth us in these words, “Moreover I have given thee one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite, with my sword and with my bow.” Whereby it is not only plain that the birthright was nothing but a double portion, but the text in Chronicles is express against our author’s doctrine, and shows that dominion was no part of the birthright: for it tells us, that Joseph had the birthright, but Judah the dominion. One would think our author were very fond of the very name of birthright, when he brings this instance of Jacob and Esau, to prove that dominion belongs to the heir over his brethren.
1. Because it will be but an ill example to prove, that dominion by God’s ordination belonged to the eldest son, because Jacob the youngest here had it, let him come by it how he would: for if it prove anything, it can only prove, against our author, that the “assignment of dominion to the eldest is not by divine institution,” which would then be unalterable: for if by the law of God, or nature, absolute power and empire belongs to the eldest son and his heirs, so that they are supreme monarchs, and all the rest of their brethren slaves, our author gives us reason to doubt whether the eldest son has a power to part with it, to the prejudice of his posterity, since he tells us, O. 158. “That in grants and gifts that have their original from God or nature, no inferior power of man can limit, or make any law of prescription against them.”
2. Because this place, Gen. 27:29. brought by our author, concerns not at all the dominion of one brother over the other, nor the subjection of Esau to Jacob: for it is plain in history, that Esau was never subject to Jacob, but lived apart in mount Seir, where he founded a distinct people and government, and was himself prince over them, as much as Jacob was in his own family. The text, if considered, can never be understood of Esau himself, or the personal dominion of Jacob over him: for the words brethren, and sons of thy mother, could not be used literally by Isaac, who knew Jacob had only one brother; and these words are so far from being true in a literal sense, or establishing any dominion in Jacob over Esau, that in the story we find the quite contrary, for Gen. 32 Jacob several times calls Esau lord, and himself his servant; and Gen. 33 “he bowed himself seven times to the ground to Esau.” Whether Esau then were a subject and vassal (nay, as our author tells us, all subjects are slaves to Jacob) and Jacob his sovereign prince by birthright, I leave the reader to judge: and to believe, if he can, that these words of Isaac, “be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee,” confirmed Jacob in a sovereignty over Esau, upon the account of the birthright he had got from him.
He that reads the story of Jacob and Esau, will find there never was any jurisdiction, or authority, that either of them had over the other, after their father’s death: they lived with the friendship and equality of brethren, neither lord, neither slave to his brother; but independent of each other, were both heads of their distinct families, where they received no laws from one another, but lived separately, and were the roots out of which sprang two distinct people under two distinct governments. This blessing then of Isaac, whereon our author would build the dominion of the elder brother, signifies no more, but what Rebecca had been told from God, Gen. 25:23. “Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people, and the elder shall serve the younger; and so Jacob blessed Judah,” Gen. 49 and gave him the sceptre and dominion; from whence our author might have argued as well, that jurisdiction and dominion belongs to the third son over his brethren, as well as from this blessing of Isaac, that it belonged to Jacob: both these places contain only predictions of what should long after happen to their
