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religion_n	christian_a	church_n	world_n	5,052	5	4.5521	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87137	The prerogative of popular government. A politicall discourse in two books. The former containing the first præliminary of Oceana, inlarged, interpreted, and vindicated from all such mistakes or slanders as have been alledged against it under the notion of objections. The second concerning ordination, against Dr. H. Hamond, Dr. L. Seaman, and the authors they follow. In which two books is contained the whole commonwealth of the Hebrews, or of Israel, senate, people, and magistracy, both as it stood in the institution by Moses, and as it came to be formed after the captivity. As also the different policies introduced into the Church of Christ, during the time of the Apostles. By James Harrington.	Harrington, James, 1611-1677.	1657 (1657)	Wing H820; Thomason E929_7; ESTC R202382	184,546	252

with himself which abating the figure is the same again and so I have nothing to answer but the figure Now for this the Prince himself is no otherwise tall then by being set upon the shoulders of the Nobility and so if they set another upon the same shoulders as in Henry the 4th or the 7th who had no Titles unto the Crown nor could otherwise have measured with the Prince be he never so low he comes to be tall enough in his particular person to measure with the Prince and to be taller too not only by those Old Examples but others that are younger than our selves though such the Nobility having not of late been weighty enough to keep the People under as derive from another Principle that of Popular ballance A Prince therefore preserving his Nobility weighty enough to keep under the people must preserve in them the ballance of that kind of Empire and the ballance containing the riches which are the power and so the Arms of the Nation this being in the Nobility the Nobility when willing must be able to dispose of the King or of the Government Nor under a lesse weight is a Nobility qualified to keep down the people as by an Argument from the contrary Henry the 7th having found the strength of his Nobility that set him in a Throne to which he had no right and fearing that the tide of their favour turning they might do as much for another abated the dependance of their Tenants and cut off their Train of Retainers which deminution of their weight releasing by degrees the People hath caused that Plain or Level into which we live to see the Mountain of that Monarchy now sunck and swallowed wherefore the ballance of the Nobility being such as failing that kind of Monarchy comes to ruine and not failing the Nobility if they joyn may give Law unto the King the inherent disease of Monarchy by a Nobility remains also uncured and uncurable These are points to which I had spoken before but something concerning France and Forraign Guards was mumbled by the Praevaricator in a wrong place while he was speaking of Turkey where there is no such thing This least I be thought to have courted Opposition for nothing shall open a New Scene while I take the occasion in this place to speak first of the Ballance of the French Monarchy and next of the Nature and use of Forraign Guards The whole Territory of France except the Crown Lands which on this account are not considerable consisteth of three shares or parts whereof the Church holdeth one the Nobility another and the Presidents Advocates other Officers of the Parliaments Courts of Justice the Citizens Merchants Tradesmen the Treasurers receivers of the Customes aids taxes impositions Gabells all which together make a vast body hold a Third by how equal portions I am sorry that I do not know nor where to learn but this is the ballance of the French Monarchy unto which the Paisant holding nothing but living though in one of the best Countrys of the world in the meanest and most miserable Condition of a Labourer or Hiend is of no account at all The parties that hold the ballance in a Territory are those of whom the Government doth naturally consist wherefore these are called Estates so the Clergy the Nobility and the Commons are the three Estates of France Though the Third because the Paisant partaking not of the ballance can in relation to Government be of no account is not called the Commons but only the Third Estate whereas the Yeomanry and Gentry in England having weighed as well in the ballance as the Church and the Nobility the three Estates of England while the Monarchy was in vigour were the Clergy the Nobility and the Commons The Consent of Nations evinceth that the Function of the Clergy or Priest except where otherwise determined of by Law appertaineth unto the Magistrate By this right Noah Abraham Job with the rest of the Patriarchs instructed their Families or sacrisiced There seemeth to have been a kind of Commonwealth in Canaan while Melchisedec was both King and Priest Such also was Moses till he consecrated Aaron and confer'd the Priesthood upon the Levites who are expresly said to succeed unto the first born that is unto the Patriarchs who till then exercised that Function Nor was it otherwise with the Gentiles where they who had the Soveraign power or were in eminent Magistracy did also the Priestly Office omnino apud veteres qui rerum potiebantur iidem Auguria tenebant ut enim sapere sic divinare regale ducebant saith Cicero and Virgil Rex Anius Rex idem hominum Phoebique Sacerdos You find the Heroes that is Princes in Poets sacrificing The Ethiopian Egyptian Lacedemonian Kings did the like in Athens constantly and in Rome when they had no Kings occasionally they elected a Rex sacrorum or King-Priest So that a free People had thus far power of electing their Priests is not deny'd by any Man This came it should seem to be otherwise Established by the Law in Egypt where the Priests whose Lands Joseph when he bought those of the People did not buy being great Landlords it may be unto the Third of the whole Territory were one of the three Estates of the Realm And it is clear in Scripture that the People till they Sold their Lands became not Servants unto Pharaoh While Agesilaus was in Egypt they deposed their King which implies the recovery of their ballance but so seeing they set up another as withall shews the ballance of the Nobility to have been predominant These particulars seem to come near unto the account of Diodorus Siculus by whom the ballance of Egypt should have stood thus The whole Revenue was divided into three parts whereof the Priests had the first the King had the second and the Nobility had the Third It seems to me that the Priests had theirs by their Antient right and title untouched by Joseph that the Kings had all the rest by the Purchase of Joseph and that in time as is usual in like cases a Nobility came through the bounty of succeeding Kings to share with them in one half But however it came about Egypt by this means is the first Example of a Monarchy upon a Nobility at least distributed into three Estates by means of a Landed Clergy which by consequence came to be the greatest Counsellors of State and fitting Religion unto their uses to bring the people to be the most superstitious in the whole World Where it not for this Example I should have said that the Indowment of a Clergy or Religious Order with Lands and the erecting of them into an Estate of the Realm or Government were no Antienter then the Goths and Vandals who introducing a like Policy which unto this day taketh place throughout the Christian world have been the cause First why the Clergy have been generally great Counsellors unto

assembled upon occasion as I conceive of giving an extraordinary Commission after the manner of the people of Athens when they Elected Ambassadors or that I may avoid strife upon a point so indifferent to choose two new Apostles The Holy Ghost said Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work wbereunto I have appointed them that is for so it is rendred by all Interpretors the Holy Ghost spake those words by the mouths of the Prophets Now the Prophets being well known for such this suffrage of theirs was no sooner given than as one that can allow Prophets to be leading men may easily think followed by all the rest of the Congregation so the whole multitude having fasted and prayed the most eminent among them or the Senatorian order in that Church laid their hands upon Paul and Barnabas who being thus sent forth by the Holy Ghost departed unto Seleucia To evade this apparent Election or Chirotonia of the whole Congregation whereby these Apostles or Embassadors unto the Churches of the Gentiles were ordained Divines have nothing to say but that they were elected by the Holy Ghost as if the Chirotonia of the people were more exclusive unto Election by the Holy Ghost than the Chirothesia of the Aristocracy for which in the mean time they contend but if neither of these were indeed exclusive of the Holy Ghost how is it possible in this frame where though of natural necessity an Aristocracy must have been included yet the Aristocracy is not in the Text so much as distinguisht from the people or once named that the power and so the ordination should not have been in the people The Council of the Apostles of the Elders and of the whole Church at Jerusalem and other Councils not of Apostles nor of the whole Church in other times or places used this form in their Acts It seemeth good unto the Holy Ghost and unto us but doth this where a true or where a pretended style exclude that act from being an Act of that whole Council or how comes it to pals that because Paul and Barnabas were separated by the Holy Ghost they were not ordained by the Chirotonia of the whole Christian people at Antioch The Chirothesia can be no otherwise understood in nature nor ever was in the Common-wealth of the Jews than Election by the few And so even under the meer Chirothesia Ordination and Election were not two but one and the same thing If Moses ordain'd Joshua his Successor by the Chirothesia he Elected Ioshua his Successour by the Chirothesia and for what reason must it be otherwise with the Chirotonia That a Pharisee could do more with one hand or a pair of hands than a Christian Church or Congregation can do with all their hands is a Doctrine very much for the honour of the true Religion and a soveraign maxime of Ecclesiastical policy The third constitution of Church Government in Scripture whether consisting of Bishops or Presbyters between which at this time a man shall hardly find a difference runs wholly upon the Aristocracy without mention of the people and is therefore compared by Grotius unto the Sanhedrim of Israel as that came to be in these dayes from whence Divines also generally and truly confess that it was taken up to which I shall need to add no more than that it is an order for which there is no precept either in the Old Testament of God or in the New of Christ This therefore thus taken up by the Apostles from the Jews is a clear demonstration that the Government of the Church in what purity soever of the times nay though under the inspection of the Apostles themselves hath been obnoxious unto that of the State wherein it was planted The Sanhedrim from the institution of the Chirothesia for a constant Order consisted of no other Senators than such only as had been ordain'd by the Imposition of Hands which came now to be conferred by the Prince in the presence or with the assistance of the Sanhedrim the same order was observed by the Jewish Synagogues of which each had her archon nor would the Jews converted unto the Christian Faith relinquish the Law of Moses whereunto this way of Ordination among other things though erroneously was vulgarly attributed whence in the Church where it consisted of converted Jews Ordination was conferred by the Archon or first in order of the Presbytery with the assistance of the rest Hence Paul in one place exhorts Timothy thus Neglect not the gift that is in thee which was given thee by Prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery And in another thus Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou st●r up the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of my hands I grant Divines that Ordination by this time was wholly in the Presbytery what say they then unto the distinction of Ordination and Election Are these still two distinct things or may we hence at least compute them to be one and the same If they say yes Why then might they not have been so before If they say no Who in this place but the Presbytery elected Why saies Doctor Hamond it is plain that the Spirit of Prophesie elected But to give account of no more than is already performed were the spirit of History rather than of Prophecy to which it appertains to tell things before they be done as did the Prophets now living in this Church that Tim thy should come to be ordained so the place is interpreted by Grotius and how it should otherwise be understood I cannot see But putting the case some Act preceded as Saul and David were elected Kings by Prophecy Yet did ever man say that for this Soul or David were any whit the less elected Kings by the People To the contrary in every well ordered Common-wealth a jove principium the disposing of the Lot and of the Suffrage too hath universally been attributed unto God The Piety of Divines in perswading the People that God elects for them and therefore they need not trouble themselves to vote is as if they should perswade them that God provides their daily bread and therefore they need not trouble themselves to work To conclude this point with Doctor Hamonds own words upon the same occasion this didinction of Ordination and Election is in Divines the procreative mistake or ignorance producing all the rest The reason why Paul ordained now after this manner among the Jews is unto me an irrefragable Argument that he ordained not after this manner among the Gentiles for whereas the first ordination in the Christian Church namely that of Matthias was performed by the Chirotonia which by degrees came now in complacence with the Jews unto the Chirothesia it seems he was contented not to alter the worst of Political institutions or customes where he found them confirm'd by long and universal practice and if so why should any man

and which being thrown down they found themselves eased But the question yet remains and that is forsooth whether of these is to be called Antient Prudence To this end never Man made a more unlucky choice then the Considerer hath done for himself of this Author who in the very beginning of his book speaking of the Pelopenesian war or that between the Commonwealths of Athens and Lacedemon saies that the Actions which preceded this and those again that were more antient though the truth of them through length of time cannot by any means be clearly discovered yet for any argument that looking into times far past he had yet light on to perswade him he does not think they have been very great either for matter of war or otherwise that is for matter of Peace or Government And lest this should not be plain enough he calls the Prudence of the three Periods observ'd by Mr. Hobbs that from the beginning of the Grecian memory to the Trojan war That of the Trojan war it self and that from thence to the present Commonwealths and Wars whereof he treateth The Imbecility of antient times Wherefore certainly this Prevaricator to give him his own fees hath lesse discretion then a Common Attorney who will be sure to examine onely those witnesses that seem to make for the cause in which he is entertained Seeing that which he affirmeth to be Antient Prudence is deposed by his own witness to have been the imbecility of antient times for which I could have so many more then I have leisure to examine that to take onely of the most Authentick as you have heard one Greek I shall add no more then one Roman and that is Florus in his Prologue where computing the ages of the Romans in the same manner Thucidides did those of the Greeks he affirmeth the time while they lived under their Kings to have been their infancy that from the Consuls until they conquer'd Italy their youth that from hence unto their Emperors their Manly age and the rest with a Complement or Salvo unto Trajan his present Lord their dotage These things though originally all Government among the Greeks and the Romans were Regall are no more then they who have not yet passed their Novitiate in story might have known Yet says the Considerer It seems to be a defect of experience to think that the Greek and the Roman actions are only considerable in antiquity But is it such a defect of experience to think them only considerable as not to think them chiefly considerable in antiquity or that the name of ancient Prudence doth not belong unto that prudence which was chief in Antiquity True saith he it is very frequent with such as have been conversant with Greek and Roman Authors to be led by them into a belief that the rest of the world was a rude inconsiderable people and which is a term they very much delight in altogether Barbarous This should be some fine Gentleman that would have Universities pulld down for the Office of an University is no more then to preserve so much of Antiquity as may keep a Nation from stinking or being barbarous which falt grew not in Monarchies but in Commonwealths or whence hath the Christian world that Religion and those Laws which are now common but from the Hebrews and Romans or from whence have we Arts but from these or the Greeks That we have a Doctor of Divinity or a Master of Art we may thank Popular government or with what languages with what things are Schollars conversant that are otherwise descended will they so plead their own cause as to tell us it is possible there should be a Nation at this day in the world without Universities or Universities without Hebrew Greek and Latine and not be barbarous that is to say rude unlearned and inconsiderable Yes this humour even among the Greeks and Romans themselves was a servile addiction unto narrow Principles and a piece of very pedantical pride What man the Greeks and the Romans that of all other would not serve servile their Principles their Learning with whose scraps we set up for Bachelours Masters and Doctors of fine things narrow their inimitable eloquence a piece of very Pedantical pride The world can never make sense of this any otherwise then that since Heads and Fellows of Colledges became the only Greeks and Romans the Greeks and Romans are become servily addicted of narrow Principles very Pedants and prouder of those things they do not understand then the other were of those they did For say they in this question the examples of the Babylonians Persians and Egyptians not to omit the antient and like modern discoveries of the Queen of the Amazons and of the King of China cannot without grosse partiality be neglected This is pretty they who say nothing at all to the policy of these governments accuse me who have fully opened it of negligence The Babylonian Persian and for ought appears to the contrary the Chinesse Policy is summed up and far exceld by that at this day of Turky and in opening this I have opn'd them all so far from neglect that I everywhere give the Turk his due whose policy I assert to be the best of this kind though not of the best kind But they will bear me down and but with one Argument which I beseech you mark that it is absolutely of the best kind for say they it is of a more absolute form hath more of the Man and less of the Law in it then is to be met with in any Kingdome of Europe I am amazed This is that kind of government which to hold Barbarous was in the Greeks and Romans Pedantical pride but would be in us who have not the same temptation of Interest downright folly The Interest of a people is not their guide but their temptation we that hold our land divided among us have not the same temptation of interest that had the servile Hebrews Greeks and Romans but the same that had the free people of Babylon Persia and Egypt where not the people but the Prince was sole Landlord O the Arts in which these men are Masters To follow the Pedantical pride of Moses Lycurgus Solon Romulus were with us downright folly but to follow humble and learned Mahomet or Ottonian in whose only Model the perfection of the Babylonian Persian Egyptian policy is consummated is antient Prudence Exquisite Polititians egregious Divines for the leading of a people into Egypt or Babylon These things considered whether antient prudence as I have stated it be downright folly or as they have stated it be not downright knavery I appeal unto any Court of Claims in the world where the Judges I mean have not more in their Caps then in their heads and in their Sleeves then the scarlet And whereas men love compendious works if I gain my cause the Reader for an answer unto the Oxford book need look no farther then

able to give Law without them For to think that he succeeds unto the Senate or that the power of the Senate may serve his Turn is a presumption will fail him The Senate as such hath no power at all but meer Authority of proposing unto the people who are the Makers of their own Laws whence the Decrees of the Senate of Rome are never Laws nor so called but Senatusconsulta It is true that a King comming in the Senate as there it did to his aid and advantage may remain so they propose not as formerly unto the People but now unto him who comes not in upon the right of the Senate but upon that of the People whence saith Justinian Quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem quum lege Regia quae de ejus imperio lata est Populus ei in eum omnes imperium suum potestatem concedat Thus the Senatusconsultum Macedonicum with the rest that had place allowed by Justinian in the compilement of the Roman laws were not Laws in that they were Senatusconsulta or proposed by the Senate but in that they were allowed by Justiman or the Prince in whom was now the right of the People Wherefore the Zelot for Monarchy hath made a pas de clerc or foul step in his procession where he argues thus out of Cujacius It was soon agreed that the distinct decrees of the Senate and People should be extended to the nature of laws therefore the distinct decrees of the Senate are laws whether it be so a greed by the people or by the Prince or no. For thus he hath no sooner made his Prince then he kicks him heels over head Seeing where the Decrees of the Senate are Laws without the King that same is as much a King as the Praevaricator a Politician A law is that which was passed by the power of the people or of the King But out of the Light In this place he takes a Welsh bait and looking back makes a Muster of his Victories like the busling Guascon who to shew what he had thrown out of the Windows in his debauchery made a formal repetition of the whole Inventary of the House CHAP. VII Whether the Ten Commandements were proposed by God or Moses and voted by the People of Israel ONe would think the Guascon had done well Is he satisfied No he will now throw the House out of the Windows The principal stones being already taken from the Foundation He hath a bag of certain windes wherewithall to reverse the super structures The first wind he lets go is but a Puff where he tells me that I bring Switz and Holland into the enumeration of the Heathen Commonwealths which if I had done their Liberties in many parts and places being more Antient then the Christian Religion in those Countries as is plain by Tacitus where he speaks of Civilis and of the Customs of the Germans I had neither wronged them nor my self but I doe no such matter for having enumerated the Heathen Commonwealths I add that the proceedings of Holland and Switz though after a more obscure manner are of the like nature The next is a Storm while reproaching me of rudeness he brings in Doctor Ferne and the Clergy by the head and the shoulders who till they undertake the quarrel of Monarchy to the confusion of the Common-wealth of Israel at least so far forth that there be no weight or obligation in such an Example are posted As if for a Christian Commonwealth to make so much use of Israel as the Roman did of Athens whose Laws she transcribed were against the Interest of the Clergy which it seems is so hostile unto Popular power that to say the Laws of Nature though they be the fountains of all Civil Law are not the Civil Law till they be the Civil Law Or thus that thou shalt not kill thou shalt not steal though they be in natural Equity yet were not the Laws of Israel or of England till voted by the People of Israel or the Parliament of England is to assert the People into the Mighty liberty of being free from the whole Moral Law and inasmuch as to be the adviser or perswader of a thing is lesse then to be the Author or Commander of it to put an indignity upon God himself In which fopperies the Praevaricator boasting of principles but minding none first confounds Authority and Command or Power and nextforgets that the dignity of the Legislator or which is all one of the Senate succeeding unto his Office as the Sanhedrim unto Moses is the greatest dignity in a Common-wealth and yet that the Laws or Orders of a Common-wealth derive no otherwise whether from the Legislator as Moses Lycurgus Solon c. or the Senate as those of Israel Lacedemon or Athens then from their Authority received and confirmed by the Vote or Command of the People It is true that with Almighty God it is otherwise then with a Mortal Legislator but through another Nature which unto him is peculiar from whom as he is the cause of being or the Creator of Mankind Omnipotent power is inseparable yet so equal is the goodnesse of this Nature unto the greatnesse thereof that as he is the Cause of welbeing by way of Election for Example in his chosen people Israel or of Redemption as in the Christian Church Himself hath prefer'd before his Empire his Authority or Proposition What else is the meaning of these words or of this proceeding of his Now therefore if ye will obey my voice indeed and keep my Covenant ye shall be unto me a Kingdom or I will be your King which Proposition being Voted by the People in the Affirmative God proceeds to propose unto them the Ten Commandements in so dreadful a manner that the People being exceedingly affrighted say unto Moses speak thou with us and we will hear thee that is be thou henceforth our Legislator or Proposer and we will resolve accordingly but let not God speak with us lest we die From whenceforth God proposeth unto the People no otherwise then by Moses whom he instructeth in this manner These are the judgements which thou shalt propose or set before them Wherefore it is said of the book of Deuteronomy containing the Covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the Land of Moab beside the Covenant which he made with them in Horeb Haec est lex quam Moses proposuit this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel Neither did God in this case make use of his Omnipotent power nor Christ in the like who also is King after the same manner in his Church and would have been in Israel where when to this end he might have muster'd up Legions of Angels been victorious with such Armies or Argyraspides as never Prince could shew the like saies no more then O Jerusalem Jerusalem how often

Kings while the People are led into superstition Secondly by planting a Religious Order in the Earth why Religion hath been brought to serve worldly ends And thirdly by rendring the Mitre able to make War why of later Ages we have had such a thing as War for Religion which till the Clergy came to be a Third State or Landlords was never known in the World For that some Cities of Greece taking Arms upon the usurpation or violation of some Temple have called it the Holy war such disputes having been but upon matter of fact and not of faith in which every Man was free came not to this Account Moses was learned in all the learning of the Egyptians but a landed Clergy introduced he not in Israel nor went the Apostles about to lay any such foundation of a Church Abating this one Example of Egypt till the Goths and Vandals who brought in the Third Estate a Government if it were unequal consisted but of two Estates as that of Rome whether under the Kings or the Commonwealth consisted of the Patritians and Plebeians or of the Nobility and the people And an equal Commonwealth consisteth but of One which is the people for Example of this you have Lacedemon and Venice where the people being few and having many Subjects or Servants might also be called Nobility as in regard of their Subjects they are in Venice and in regard of their Helots or Servants they might have been in Lacedemon That I say which introducing two Estates causeth division or makes a Commonwealth unequal is not that she hath a Nobility without which she is deprived of her most especial Ornament and weakned in her conduct but when only the Nobility is capable of Magistracy or of the Senate and where this is so ordered she is unequal as Rome But where the Nobility is no otherwise capable of Magistracy nor of the Senate then by Election of the People the Commonwealth consisteth but of one Order and is Equal as Lacedemon or Venice But for a Polititian commend me to the Considerer He will have Rome to have been an equal Commonwealth and Venice to be an unequal one which must be evinced by Wyre-drawing For having elsewhere as hath been shewn admitted without-opposition that the ballance of Empire is well divided into national and provincial the humour now takes him to spin that wedge into such a thred as by intangling of these two may make them both easie to be broken Hereunto he betaketh himself in this manner As Mr. Harrington hath well observed p. 5. where there are two parties in a Republique with equal power as in that of Rome the people had one half and the Nobility had the other half confusion and misery are there intayled For remedy whereof or to avoid this there can be no way but to make the Commonwealth very unequal In answer to this there will need no more then to repeat the same things honestly Mr. Harrington speaketh of the National ballance of Empire p. 5. unto this sense where the Nobility holdeth half the propriety or about that proportion and the people the other half the shares of the Land may be equal but in regard that the Nobility have much among Few and the People little among Many the Few will not be contented to have authority which is all their proper share in a Commonwealth but will be bringing the People under power which is not their proper share in a Commonwealth wherefore this Commonwealth must needs be unequal and except by altering the ballance as the Athenians did by the Sisacthia or recision of debts or as the Romans went about to do by an Agrarian it be brought to such equality that the whole power be in the People and there remain no more then Authority unto the Nobility where is no remedy but the one with perpetual fewd will eat out the other as the People did the Nobility in Athens and the Nobility the People in Rome Where the Carkass is there will be the Eagles also where the Riches are there will be the Power So if a few be as rich as all the rest a few will have as much power as all the rest in which case the Commonwealth is unequal and there can be no end of staving and tayling till it be brought unto equality This for the National ballance for the provincial there power doth not follow propriety but to the contrary This the Praevaricator having acknowledged le ts slip to the end that he may take a grip of Venice which because the three or four thousand of which originally consisted and now consisteth that whole government having acquired Provinces and encrease of their City by later comers do not admit these unto participation of power he saith is an unequal Commonwealth He will be a Mill-Horse whether the Cake be dough or not for this is to draw in a circle and Rome which by his former arguments should have been equal by this again must be unequal seeing Rome as little admitted her Provinces into the body of the Commonwealth as doth Venice This clash is but by way of Parenthesis to return therefore unto the businesse in present Agitation The estates be they one or two or three are such as was said by vertue of the ballance upon which the Government must naturally depend Wherefore constitutively the Government of France and all other Monarchies of like ballance was administred by an Assembly of the three Estates and thus continued untill that Nation being vanquished by the English Charls the 7th was put to such shifts as for the recovery of himself in the greatest distresse he could make unto which recovery while the Estates could not be legally called he happening to attain without them so ordered his affairs that his Successors by adding unto his Inventions came to rule without this Assembly a way not suiting with the nature of their ballance which therefore required some Assistance by force and other concurring Policies of like nature whereof the forraign Guards of that Monarchy are one The great baits alluring the Nobility another and the Emergent interest of the Church a Third To begin with the last of those the Church except it be in a War for Religion as when they joyned with the Princes of Lorrain and what party of the French Nobility were made or they could make against the King of Navarre are not of themselves so hot at hand or prompt unto Arms but the King being to use their word no Heretick through their great apprehension of the third Estate as that which is most addicted unto the Protestant Religion may be confident they will never side with the People So by this Emergent interest or accident he hath the Church sure enough For the Nobility which is exceeding gallant this Change hath the greatest baits for whereas the Church being not spared the Third Estate is laden and the Paisant overladen with taxes the Nobility is not only at better ease

the nature of his Ordination the Conditions mentioned at the conferring of the same or the gift that was in him by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery which in some extended no farther than to shew how meat should be kill'd and dress'd how uncleanness should be purified what were vices of the body what might be eaten or drunk and what not in others it extended to some one or more or all the facultys expressed but I am inclining to believe that a plenary Ordination used not to be conferr'd but by the Great Sanhedrim or at least some one of the Iethronian Courts They used also to confer this Ordination some time occasionally and for a season in this manner Receive the gift of judiciary Ordination or the right of binding and loosing til such time as you return unto us in the City Where the Christian Jews still following their former Customes in higher matters as the observation of the Sabbath and of Circumcision even unto such a degree that Paul not to displease them took Timothy and circumcised him seem unto me to have followed this custom who when the Prophets at Antioch had informed them that Paul and Barnabas were to be separated unto an extraordinary work laid their hands upon them and sent them away for otherwise as to Ordination Paul and Barnabas had that before At least Paul by Ananias and for any such precept in the Christian Religion there was none Iosephus Philo and other Authors that tell us the Common-wealth of Israel was an Aristocracy look no farther than the introduction of the Chirothesia by the Presbyterian party which must have taken date some time after the Captivity or the restitution of the Common-wealth by Ezra there heing not one sillable for it in Scripture but enough to the contrary seeing God introduced the Chirotonia By which it is demonstrable that a Presbyterian party may bring a Popular Government unto Oligarchy aud deface even the work of God himself so that it shall not be known to afer-ages as also that Ecclesiastical Writers for such are the Talmudists may pretend that for many hundred years together as Divines also have done to be in Scripture which neither is nor ever was there But have I yet said enough to shew that Ordination especially as in this Example not of a Clergy but of a Magistracy whether by the Chirotonia or Chirothesia is a political institution or must I rack my brains for Arguments to prove that an Order or a Law having such influence upon the Common-wealth that being introduced or Repealed it quite alters the whole frame of the Government must needs be of a Political nature and therefore not appertain unto Divines or unto a Clergy but unto the Magistrate unless their traditions may be of force to alter the Government as they please all is one they can abate nothing of it let what will come of the Government the Chirothesia they must and will have Then let them have Monarchy too or Tyranny for one of these according as the ballance happeneth to stand with or against their Chirothesia is the certain consequence either Tyranny as in Israel or Monarchy as in the Papacy and from that or the like principle in all Gothick Empires which examples to begin with Israel well deserve the paines to be somewhat more diligently unfolded All Elections in Israel save those of the Priests who were Eligible by the Lot being thus usurped by the Presbyterian party and the people by that means devested of their Chirotonia some three hundred years before Christ Hillel Senior High Priest and Archon or Prince of the Sanhedrim found means to draw this power of Ordination in shew somewhat otherwise but in effect unto himself and his Chirothesia for by his influence upon the Sanhedrim it was brought to pass that whereas formerly any man Ordain'd might in the manner shewn have ordained his Disciples it was now agreed that no man should be ordained without the License of the Prince and that this power should not be in tbe Prince but in the presence of the Father of the Sanhedrim or Speaker of the House Thus the Aristocracy of Israel becoming first Oligarchical took according unto the nature of all such Governments long steps towards Monarchy which succeeding in the Asmonean Family commonly called the Machabees was for their great merit in vindicating the Jews from the Tyranny of Antiochus confirmed unto them by the universal consent and Chirotonia of the people Nevertheless unto him that understands the orders of a Common-wealth or hath read the Athenian Lacedemonian or Roman Story it will be plain enough that but for their Aristocracy they needed not to have been so much beholding unto or to have stood so much in need of one Family It is true both the merit of these Princes and the manner of their free Election by the people seem to forbid the Name of Tyranny unto this institution But so it is that let there be never so much merit in the man or inclination of the people to the Prince or the Government that is not founded upon the due ballance the Prince in that case must either govern in the nature of a Common-wealth as did those of this Family reforming the policy after the Lacedemonian Modell or turn Tyrant as from their time who lived in the Age of the Grecian Monarchy did all their Successors till under the Romans this Nation became a Province From which time such endeavours and insurrections they used for the recovery of their antient policy that under the Emperor Adrian who perceived at what their Ordination being not of Priests but of Magistrates and of a Senate pretending unto Soveraign Judicature and Authority seem'd to aim there came saith the Talmud against the Israelites an Edict out of the Kingdom of the wicked meaning the Roman Empire whereby whosoever should ordain or be ordain'd was to be put to death and the school or City in which such an act should be done to be destroyed whereupon Rabbi Jehuda Ben Baba least Ordination should fail in Israel went forth and standing between two great mountains and two great Cities and between two Sabbath days journeys from Osa and Sephara Ordained five Presbyters For this feat the Rabbi is remember'd by the Talmudists under the name of Ordinator but the same as it follows being discovered by the Roman Guards They shot his body through with so many Darts as made it like a sieve yet staid not the business here but so obstinate continued the Jew in the superstition unto which this kind of Ordination was now grown that whereas by the same it was unlawful for them to Ordain in a forraign Land and at home they could not be brought to abstain the Emperor banished them all out of their own Country whence happened their total dispersion That of a thing which at the first was a meer delusion such Religion should come in time and with education to be made

that not onely they who had received advantage could suffer Martyrdome but they that had lost by it would be utterly lost for it were admirable in the case of this people if it were not common in the case of most in the world at this day custom may bring that to be received as an Ordinance of God for which there is no colour in Scripture For to consult Maimonides a little better upon this point Whereas saith he they grant in case it should happen that in all the Holy Land there remained but one Presbyter that Presbyter assisted by two other Israelites might ordain the seventy or great Sanhedrim and the Sanhedrim so constituted might constitute and ordain the lesser Courts I am of opinion that were there no Presbyter in the Land yet if all the wise-men of Israel should agree to constitute or ordain Judges they might do it lawfully enough But if so then how comes it to pass that our Ancestors have been so solicitous least Judicature should fail in Israel Surely for no other cause than that from the time of the Captivity the Israelites were so dispersed that they could not upon like occasions be brought together Now I appeal whether the clear words of Maimonides where he saith that out Master Moses ordained the Sanhedrim by the Chirothesia be not more clearly and strongly contradicted in this place than they are affirmed in the other since acknowledging that if the people could assemble they might Ordain the Sanhedrim he gives it for granted that when they did assemble they had power to Ordain it and that Moses did assemble them upon this occasion is plain in Scripture Again if the power of Ordination fall ultimately unto the People there is not a stronger argument in Nature that it thence primarily derived To conclude the Chirothesia of the Presbyterian party in Israel is thus confessed by the Author no otherwise necessaty than through the defect of the Chirotonia of the People which ingenuity of the Talmudist for any thing that hath yet past might be worthy the imitation of Divines In tracking the Jews from the restitution of their Common-wealth after the Captivity to their dispersion it seemeth that the later Monarchy in Israel was occasioned by the Oligarchy the Oligarchy by the Aristocracy and the Aristocracy by the Chirothesia But that this Monarchy though erected by Magnanimous and Popular Princes could be no less than Tyranny deriv'd from another principle that is the insufficiency of the ballance For albeit from the time of the Captivity the Jubilee was no more in use yet the Virgin Mary as an Heiress is affirmed by some to have been Married unto Ioseph by vertue of this Law Every Daughter that possesseth an inheritance in any Tribe of the Children of Israel shall be Wife unto one of the Family of the Tribe of her Fathers c. By which the popular Agrarian may be more than suspected to have been of greater vigour than would admit of a well ballanced Monarchy The second Presbytery which is now attained unto a well ballanced Empire in the Papacy hath infinitely excelled the patern the Lands of Italy being most of them in the Church This if I had leisure might be tracked by the very same steps at first it consisted of the seventy Parish Priests or Presbyters of Rome now seventy Cardinals creating unto themselves an High Priest or Prince of their Sanhedrim the Pope but for the Superstition whereunto he hath brought Religion and continues by his Chirothesia to hold it a great and a Reverend Monarch established upon a solid foundation and governing by an Exquisite policy not only well ballanced at home but deeply rooted in the greatest Monarchies of Christendom where the Clergy by vertue of their Lands are one of the three States The maxims of Rome are profound for there is no making use of Princes without being necessary unto them nor have they any regard unto that Religion which doth not regard Empire All Monarchies of the Golthick model that is to say where the Clergy by vertue of their Lands are a third estate subsist by the Pope whose Religon creating a reverence in the people and bearing an awe upon the Prince preserveth the Clergy that else being unarmed become a certain prey unto the King or the people and where this happeneth as in Henry the Eighth down goes the Throne for so much as the Clergy looseth falls out of the Monarchical into the Popular scale Where a Clergy is a third estate Popular Government wants earth and can never grow but where they dye at the root a Prince may sit a while but is not safe nor is it in nature except he have a Nobility or Gentry able without a Clergy to give ballance unto the people that he should subsist long or peaceably For where-ever a Government is founded upon an Army as in the Kings of Israel or the Emperours of Rome there the saddest Tragedies under heaven are either one the stage or in the Tiring-house These things considered the Chirothesia being originally nothing else but a way of Policy excluding the people where it attaineth not unto a ballance that is sufficient for this purpose bringeth forth Oligarchy or Tyranny as among the Jews And where it attaineth unto a ballance sufficent unto this end produceth Monarchy as in the Papacy and in all Gothick Kingdomes The Priests of Aegypt where as it is described by Siculus their revenue came unto the third part of the Realm would no question have been exactly well fitted with the Chirothesia pretended unto by modern Divines Suppose the Apostles had planted the Christian Religion in those parts and the Priests had been all converted I do not think that Divines will say that having altered their Religion they needed to have deserted their being a third estate their overballance to the people their lands their preheminece in the Government or any part of thir Policy for that and I am as far from saying so as themselves On the other side as Paul was a Citizen of Rome let us suppose him to have been a Citizen of Athens and about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to constitute the Christian Religion in this Gommon-wealth where any Citizen might speak unto the people Imagine then he should have said thus Men of Athens that which you ignorantly seek I bring unto you the true Religion but to receive this you must not alter your former belief only but your ancient Customes your political Assemblies have been hitherto called Ecclesiae this word must loose the ancient sense and be no more understood but of spiritual Consistories and so whereas it hath been of a popular it must henceforth be of an Aristocratical or Presbyterian signification For your Christonia that also must follow the same rule insomuch as on whomsoever one or more of the Aristocracy or Presbytery shall lay their hands the same is understood by vertue of that Action to be Chirotonized How well would this have sounded