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Sir George Radcliffe’s ‘Originall of Government’ (1639) f. 366v: Of the originall of Government.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2015

George Radcliffe
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Extract

All power belongeth unto God: psalm 62. 11. whatsoever power any creatures have, they have it by communication from God: whether it be naturall power, or might, the principle of motion, and of action and passion, given to all creatures by the Law of their creation, and conserved since by Gods providence, and concurrence with them in the execution thereof: or else it be morall power, authoritie or dominion; which is exercised only amongst reasonable creatures; and seemes to be described in those words of God to Cain: Genesis 4. comment 7. Unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 39 , Issue 154 , November 2014 , pp. 318 - 322
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2014

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References

46 The reference is Genesis, chapter 4, verse 7. The word ‘comment’ refers to the marginal commentary in the 1611 Authorised Version which clarified the meaning slightly, adding ‘subject’ before ‘unto’.

47 ‘(1)’ does not seem to serve any purpose here.

48 ‘conusance’, i.e. cognisance, see Simpson, J. A. and Weiner, E. S. C. (eds), The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edn, Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar [hereafter O.E.D.], sub ‘cognizance’.

49 ‘Pater Patriae’, father of the fatherland; ‘serui paenis’, or poenis, slaves for reason of punishment.

50 ‘χαρíσματα’, charismata, grace or favours; ‘serui a natura’, slaves by nature or natural slaves.

51 ‘Cujus ... regnantur’, By whose command people are born, by His command also are kings ordained, proper for those people who are at that time governed by those kings. For a contemporary text of Irenaeus with many marginalia by Archbishop Ussher throughout, in which this passage is marked, see Irenaeus, , Adversus Valentini, & similium gnosticorum haereses, libri quinque, ed. Feu-Ardentius, O.F.M. Franciscus (Coloniae Agrippinae, 1596)Google Scholar (BB. ee. 12, Old Library, Trinity College Dublin), bk 5, chap. 24, p. 473; idem, Detectionis et eversionis falso cognominatae adnitionis, seu contra haereses libri quinque, ed. Massuetus, Renatus, in Patrologia Graeca tomus VII (Paris, Migne, 1857), bk. 5, chap. 24, cols 1187–8.Google Scholar Radcliffe probably lifted this quotation from Grotius’s chapter on whether supreme power lay in the people, see Grotius, Hugo, De iure belli ac pacis libri tres (Amsterdam, 1631), bk I, chap. 3, sec. 8, p. 54Google Scholar; idem, The rights of war and peace, ed. Richard Tuck (3 vols, Indianapolis, 2005), bk 1, chap. 3, sec. 8, p. 275.

52 Grotius, De iure belli ac pacis, bk 2, chap. 11, sect. 1, p. 195; idem, Rights of war and peace, bk 2, chap. 11, sec. 1, p. 701.

53 Radcliffe’s meaning would have been better communicated by a paragraph break here. The arguments he ascribed to Protestant divines were rather different to those he ascribed to Catholic ones.

54 ‘or’, i.e. formerly or previously.

55 ‘mediante populo’, with the people mediating.

56 ‘rise’, i.e. origin or source, O.E.D., sub ‘rise’.