Footsteps of God by the Testimony of DAVID may be seen in the deep Waters much more by the consent of the whole Bible in Land or in the foundation of Empire unless we make the Footsteps of God to be one thing and his ways another which as to Government are these Grot. ad Numb 26. 53. GOD by the Ballot of Israel more fully describ'd in the next Book divided the Land som respect had to the Princes and Patriarchs for the rest to every one his inheritance according to the number of names which were drawn out of one Urn first and the Lots of Land the measure with the goodness of the same consider'd drawn afterwards out of the other Urn to those names Wherfore God ordaining the Cause and the Cause of necessity producing the Effect God in ordaining this Balance intended Popular Government But when the People admitting of no Nay would have a King God therupon commanding SAMUEL to shew them the manner of the King SAMUEL declar'd to the People concerning the manner or policy of the King saying He will take your Fields and your Vinyards and your Oliveyards even 1 Sam. 8. the best of them and give to his Servants which kind of proceding must needs create the Balance of a Nobility over and above this he will take the tenth of your Seed and of your Vinyards and of your Sheep by way of Tax for the maintenance of his Armys and thus your Daughters shall com to be his Cooks and Confectioners and your Sons to run before his Chariot There is not from the Balance to the Superstructures a more perfect description of a Monarchy by a Nobility For the third Branch the People of Egypt in time of the Famin which was very sore com to JOSEPH saying Buy us and our Land Gen. 47. 19 20. for Bread and we and our Land will be Servants to PHARAOH And JOSEPH bought all the Land of Egypt except that of the Priests for PHARAOH So the Land became PHARAOH'S who lest the remembrance of their former Property by lively marks and continual remembrancers should stir them up as the Vandals in Africa strip'd in Grot. ad Gen. 47. like manner of their Property and yet remaining in their antient Book I Dwellings were stir'd up by their Women to Sedition remov'd the People thus sold or drave them like Cattel even from one end of the borders of Egypt to the other end therof In which you have the Balance of a sole Landlord or absolute Prince with the miserable and yet necessary consequence of an inslav'd People Now the Balance of Governments throout the Scriptures being of these kinds and no other the Balance of Oceana is exactly calculated to the most approv'd way and the clearest Footsteps of God in the whole History of the Bible and wheras the Jubile was a Law instituted for preservation of the popular Balance from alteration so is the Agrarian in Oceana BUT says the Prevaricator Hocus Pocus or in the name of Wonder how can this Agrarian be the Foundation of that Government which had subsisted more than forty five years without it For they were so long after the giving of this Law for the division of the Land before they had the Land to divide WHICH is as if one should say upon that other Law of the like date Judges and Officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates Hocus Pocus or in the name of Wonder how should the Children of Israel make them Judges and Officers in their gates before they had any gates to make them in fine sport to be play'd by an Attorny for the Clergy with Scripture where it is plain enough that the Laws of a Commonwealth were given by MOSES to an Army to be put in execution when that Army should becom a Commonwealth as happen'd under JOSHUA BUT no saying will serve his turn If this Agrarian were meant as fundamental to the Government the Provision he will have it was weak and not proper for attaining the end propos'd there being nothing in the nature of the Agrarian to hinder but that the whole Country might for the space of near fifty years that is the time between the two Jubiles have com into the hands of one man and so have destroy'd Balance Agrarian Government and all THIS they that boast of their Mathematics might have taken the pains before they had bin so confident to have demonstrated possible as how or by what means one Lot could com in fifty years to be multiply'd six hundred thousand times and that without Usury which bar the Israelits being no Merchants was thought sufficient to be given or thus to call the Prudence of God by their impracticable Phansys in question is abominable I WOULD have Divines as this Prevaricator persuades and it should seem has persuaded som of them to overthrow the Commonwealth of Israel for otherwise I will give them my word they shall never be able to touch that of Oceana which except in the hereditary Succession and Dignity of the Princes of the Tribes and the Patriarchs and that the Senat was for life differs not from the former for as to the divers working up of the Superstructures in divers Commonwealths according to the diversity of occasions it coms to no accountable difference and much I conceive of this carving or finishing in Israel which had it bin extant would perhaps have shewn a greater resemblance is lost For the Senats as to their numbers that of the 300 in Oceana considering the bulk of the People excedes not that of the Seventy in Israel the Succession and Dignity of the Princes of the Tribes and of the Patriarchs was ordain'd for the preservation of the Pedigrees which CHRIST being born are not any more to be of like consequence and that the Senators were for life deriv'd from a Chap. 11 former Custom of such a number of Elders exercising som Authority in Egypt tho not that of the Senat till it was instituted by God from the descent of the Patriarchs into that Land who being at their descent seventy Persons and governing their Familys by the right of Paternity as the People increas'd and they came to dy had their Successors appointed in such a manner that the number of Seventy in remembrance of those Patriarchs was diligently preserv'd And forasmuch as the Patriarchs governing their own Familys which at first were all in their own right were consequently for life this also pleas'd in the substitution of others These things rightly consider'd I have not vary'd from the Authority of Israel in a tittle there being neither any such necessary use of Pedigrees nor uninterrupted Succession of Elders for life in Oceana and unless a man will say That we ought to have the like Effect where there is not the like Cause which were absurd the Authority of a Commonwealth holds no otherwise than from the Cause to the Effect OCEANA I say cannot be wounded but by piercing the
as in the Ordination of STEPHEN and last of all by excluding the People to degenerat wholly into the Chirothesia of the Presbytery as in the Ordination of TIMOTHY all this by the testimony of Scripture and in the purest times even the age of the Apostles Whence my Undertaking to shew that as CHRIST intended his Doctrin should be preach'd to all Nations so he intended his Disciplin should be such as might sute with any Government as indeed if the choice of any of these three be lawful it dos exactly is I hope perform'd For where the Government is Popular it is the same with the first where it is Aristocratical or Monarchical it agrees with the last and where it is mix'd it is between both and responsible to the second Of these three in the farther exercise of their natural and Chap. 5 intended compliance with Human Prudence it may be convenient to give som fuller Exemplification THAT any other Ordination than that of the first kind for the original Authority or Practice of it whether in the Commonwealth of Israel or in the Church of Christ and indeed for the Prerogative of the same in nature should have bin introduc'd by the Apostles where it might much less where the nature of the civil Policy would admit of no other is neither probable by Scripture nor Reason whence it is that in the Citys of Lycaonia and Pisidia the Government of these being then Popular we do not find any mention at all of the Chirothesia the Apostles in these places 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 chirotonizing Elders in every Congregation TO evade this place our Adversarys turn tail to the things and make their whole flight at the words In taking one of them into the Disputation I shall take in all for they run all upon the same Quotations or with little addition §. 3. THAT the word Chirotonizing says Dr. HAMMOND in this place signifys no more than ordaining by the Imposition of Hands is not so generally acknowleg'd by late Writers but that it may be useful to give som few Testimonys out of those Writers which were nearest the times of the Scripture Thus PHILO JUDAEUS of JOSEPH 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was ordain'd Governor of all Egypt under the King So again of MOSES 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was constituted their Ruler So of AARON'S Sons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God constituted them Priests ALEXANDER Son of ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES writes to JONATHAN 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joseph An. L. 13. c. 5. We in the regal stile constitute thee High Priest LUCIAN says of HEPHESTION 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that ALEXANDER made him a God when he was dead APPIAN which is added out of GROTIUS whence most of the rest is taken to signify Election of Magistrats made by the Roman Emperors uses no other word and later Writers speak of som that were chirotoniz'd Emperors by their Fathers For the use of the word among Christian Writers take one place in the Author of the Constitutions L. 7. c. 45. for many CLEMENT after the death of LINUS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was ordain'd Bishop of Rome by PETER But what need any more CHRIST'S Disciples are said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 design'd Act. 10. 41. or foreconstituted by God the witnesses of his Resurrection by all which that of PAUL and BARNABAS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is but constituting or creating Elders in every Church Wherfore they that have look'd so far back to the Original as to think it necessary to render the word to create by Suffrages are sure guilty of a very impertinent nicety I promise you had this bin against one of our Doctors it might have bin a rude Charge but it is only against ERASMUS BEZA DIODATI and such as took upon them to translate the Switz French Italian Belgic and till the Episcopal correction the English Bibles And what apparent cause is there of such confidence What necessity is there even in the places alleg'd why the word Chirotonia should be understood in the sense impos'd The People of Egypt till having sold their Lands they came to lose their Popular balance were not Servants to PHARAOH wherfore when JOSEPH was made Governor over all Egypt they were free Book II now that a King should make a Governor of a free People without their consent or som advice as we say of his Parlament is altogether improbable the rather because a Protector in the absence or minority of the King has bin no otherwise made in England nor pretends the present Protector to any other title than the like Chirotonia But that MOSES is said by the same Author who affirm'd that he introduc'd the Chirotonia in Israel to have bin chirotoniz'd Ruler of the People can in my judgment be no otherwise than originally and literally taken seeing God himself was no otherwise made King in Israel than by the Suffrage of the People That the like must be understood of the Sons of AARON has bin already shewn The Doctor is the first has told me that the plural number for the Royal Stile is so antient as EPIPHANES Sure I am it was not deriv'd from his Macedonian Predecessors for in the Letters to the Athenians and the Thebans De Cor. recited by DEMOSTHENES PHILIP of Macedon writes in the singular number But the Letter of EPIPHANES to JONATHAN must it seems import that he at single hand tho the words carry double had chirotoniz'd a High Priest of the Jews Who can help it Som Princes have not only given out that their Priests have bin chirotoniz'd when they were not but that themselves have bin chirotoniz'd when there was no such matter When a Prince says that he was chirotoniz'd or elected by the People to talk of Rhetoric is to have none Divines in this case commonly understand it to be proper or literally meant for to impose a new sense is to spoil the word and spoil the word spoil the Prince LUCIAN is a Drol and intends a Jest but not so good a one as that he of all others should com nearest to help up with a Hierarchy For the Chirotonia or Election of the Roman Magistrats by the Suffrage of the People or of the Army every man knows that it is literal SUIDAS himself interpreting the word by this very example where he affirms it to signify Election or Ratification by the Many The Quotation out of the Constitutions with those of Bishop BILSON and others out of the Greec Fathers and out of Councils do not only imply the word Chirotonia but the thing while they all relate to that kind of Ordination which being in those Churches yet administer'd as at the Ordination of STEPHEN was not confer'd without the consent of the People But it is above all that laboring to prove the Chirotonia and the Chirothesia to be the same thing they should rely most upon the place where the Apostles are said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to have bin
the Heavens are the Lords but the Earth has he given to the Children of Men Yet says God to the Father of these Children In the sweat of thy Face shalt thou eat thy Bread Dii laborantibus sua munera vendunt This Donation of the Earth to Man coms to a kind of selling it for INDUSTRY a Treasure which seems to purchase of God himself From the different kinds and successes of this Industry whether in Arms or in other Exercises of the Mind or Body derives the natural equity of Dominion or Property and from the legal establishment or distribution of this Property be it more or less approaching towards the natural equity of the same procedes all Government The balance of Empire consists in Property THE distribution of Property so far as it regards the nature or procreation of Government lys in the overbalance of the same Just as a man who has two thousand pounds a year may have a Retinue and consequently a Strength that is three times greater than his who injoys but five hundred pounds a year Not to speak at this time of Mony which in small Territorys may be of a like effect but to insist upon the main which is Property in Land the overbalance of this as it was at first constituted or coms insensibly to be chang'd in a Nation may be especially of three kinds that is in One in the Few or in the Many The generation of Absolute Monarchy THE overbalance of Land three to one or therabouts in one Man against the whole People creates Absolute Monarchy as when JOSEPH had purchas'd all the Lands of the Aegyptians for PHARAOH The Constitution of a People in this and such cases is capable of intire servitude Buy us and our Land for Bread and we and Gen. 47. 19. our Land will be Servants to PHARAOH The generation of Regulated Monarchy 1 Sam. 8. THE overbalance of Land to the same proportion in the Few against the whole People creates Aristocracy or Regulated Monarchy as of late in England And hereupon says SAMUEL to the People of Israel when they would have a King He will take your Fields even the best of them and give them to his Servants The constitution of a People in this and the like cases is * Nec totam libertatem nec totam servitutem pati possunt Tacit. neither capable of intire Liberty nor of intire Servitude The generation of Popular Government THE overbalance of Land to the same proportion in the People or where neither one nor the few overbalance the whole People creates Popular Government as in the division of the Land of Canaan to the whole People of Israel by lot The constitution of a People in this and the like cases is capable of intire Freedom nay not capable of any other settlement it being certain that if a Monarch or single Person in such a State thro the corruption or improvidence of their Counsils might carry it yet by the irresistible force of Nature or the reason alleg'd by MOSES I am not able to bear all this People alone Numb 11. 14. Book I because it is too heavy for me he could not keep it but out of the deep Waters would cry to them whose feet he had stuck in the mire Of the Militia and of the Negative Voice WHEREVER the balance of a Government lys there naturally is the Militia of the same and against him or them wherin the Militia is naturally lodg'd there can be no negative Vote IF a Prince holds the overbalance as in Turky in him is the Militia as the Janizarys and Timariots If a Nobility has the over-balance the Militia is in them as among us was seen in the Barons Wars and those of York and Lancaster and in France is seen when any considerable part of that Nobility rebelling they are not to be reduc'd but by the major part of their Order adhering to the King IF the People has the overbalance which they had in Israel the Judg. 20. Militia is in them as in the four hundred thousand first decreing and then waging War against Benjamin Where it may be inquir'd what Power there was on earth having a Negative Voice to this Assembly This always holds where there is Settlement or where a Government is natural Where there is no Settlement or where the Government is unnatural it procedes from one of these two causes either an imperfection in the Balance or else such a corruption in the Lawgivers wherby a Government is instituted contrary to the Balance Imperfect Government IMPERFECTIONS of the Balance that is where it is not good or down weight cause imperfect Governments as those of the Roman and of the Florentin People and those of the Hebrew Kings and Roman Emperors being each exceding bloody or at least turbulent Tyranny Oligarchy Anarchy GOVERNMENT against the balance in One is Tyranny as that of the Athenian PISISTRATUS in the Few it is Oligarchy as that of the Roman DECEMVIRS in the Many Anarchy as that under the Neapolitan MAZINELLO The Divine right of Government WHEREVER thro Causes unforeseen by Human Providence the Balance coms to be intirely chang'd it is the more immediatly to be attributed to Divine Providence And since God cannot will the necessary cause but he must also will the necessary effect or consequence what Government soever is in the necessary direction of the Balance the same is of Divine Right Wherfore tho of the Israelits God says â—os 8. 4. They have set up Kings but not by me they have made Princes and I knew it not yet to the small Countries adjoining to the Assyrian Empire â—â—r 27. 6 17. he says Now have I given all these Lands into the hand of the King of Babylon my Servant Serve the King of Babylon and live CHAP. II. Shewing the variation of the English Balance THE Land in possession of the Nobility and Clergy of England till HENRY 7 th cannot be esteem'd to have overbalanc'd those held by the People less than four to one Wheras in our days the Clergy being destroy'd the Lands in possession of the People overbalance those held by the Nobility at least nine in ten In shewing how this change came about som would have it that I assume to my self more than my share tho they do not find me delivering that which must rely upon Authority and not vouching my Authors But HENRY the Seventh being conscious of infirmity in his Title yet finding with what strength and vigor he was brought in by the Nobility Chap. 2 conceiv'd jealousys of the like Power in case of a decay or change of Affections Nondum orbis adoraverat Romam The Lords yet led Country lives their Houses were open to Retainers Men experienc'd in Military Affairs and capable of commanding their Hospitality was the delight of their Tenants who by their Tenures or Dependence were oblig'd to follow their Lords in Arms.
French Monarchy to which the Peasant holding nothing but living tho in one of the best Countrys of the World in the meanest and most miserable condition of a Laborer or Hynd is of no account at all THE Partys that hold the Balance in a Territory are those of whom the Government dos naturally consist wherfore these are call'd Estates so the Clergy the Nobility and the Commons are the three Estates of France Tho the third because the Peasant partaking not of the Balance can in relation to Government be of no account is not call'd the Commons but only the third Estate wheras the Yeomanry and Gentry in England having weigh'd as well in the Balance as the Church and the Nobility the three Estates of England while the Monarchy was in vigor were the Clergy the Nobility and the Commons The Consent of Nations evinces that the Function Grotius de Imp. Sum. Pot. circa sacra C. 2. S. 4. of the Clergy or Priest except where otherwise determin'd by Law appertains to the Magistrat By this right NOAH ABRAHAM JOB with the rest of the Patriarchs instructed their Familys or sacrific'd There seems to have bin 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 Levits who are expresly said to succede to the firstborn that is to the Patriarchs who till then exercis'd that Function Nor was it otherwise with the Gentils where they who had the Soverain 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 says CICERO and VIRGIL REX ANIUS Rex idem hominum PHOEBIQUE Sacerdos You find the Heros 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 Original of a Landed Clergy establish'd by the Law in Egypt where the Priests whose Lands JOSEPH when he bought those of the People did not buy being Gen. 47. 22. great Landlords it may be to 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 to Book I PHARAOH While AGESILAUS was in Egypt they depos'd their Xenoph. in Orat. de Ages King which implys the recovery of their Balance but so seeing they set up another as withal shews the Balance of the Nobility to have bin predominant These Particulars seem to com near to the account of DIODORUS SICULUS by whom the Balance of Egypt should L. 1. have stood thus The whole Revenue was divided into three Parts wherof the Priest 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 untouch'd 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 thro the bounty of succeding 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 Counsillors of State and fitting Religion to their uses to bring the People to be the most superstitious in the whole World WERE 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 than the Goths and Vandals who introducing a like Policy which to this day takes place throout the Christian World have bin the cause FIRST Why the Clergy have bin generally great Counsillors to Kings while the People are led into Superstition SECONDLY By planting a religious Order in the Earth why Religion has bin brought to serve worldly ends AND Thirdly by rendring the Miter able to make War why of latter 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 som Citys of Greece taking Arms upon the Thucyd. l. 1. Usurpation or Violation of som Temple have call'd it the Holy War such Disputes having bin put upon matter of Fact and not of Faith in which every man was free came not to this account MOSES was learn'd in all the Learning of the Egyptians but a Landed Clergy introduc'd 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 inequal consisted but of two Estates as that of Rome whether under the Kings or the Commonwealth consisted of the Patricians and Plebeians or of the Nobility and the People And an equal Commonwealth consists 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 call'd a Nobility as in regard of their Subjects they are in Venice and in regard of their Helots or Servants they might have bin in Lacedemon That I say which introducing two Estates causes Division or makes a Commonwealth inequal is not that she has a Nobility without which she is depriv'd of her most special Ornament and weaken'd in her Conduct but when the Nobility only is capable of Magistracy or of the Senat and where this is so order'd she is inequal as Rome But where the Nobility is no otherwise capable of Magistracy nor of the Senat than by Election of the People the Commonwealth consists but of one Order and is equal as Chap. 9 Lacedemon or Venice BUT for a Politician commend me to the Considerer he will have Rome to have bin an equal Commonwealth and Venice to be an inequal one which must be evinc'd by wiredrawing For having elswhere as has bin shewn admitted without opposition that the Balance of Empire is well divided into national and provincial the humor now Consid p. 16. 69. 70. takes him to spin that wedg into such a thred as by intangling of these two may make them both easy to be broken Hereto he betakes himself in this manner As Mr. HARRINGTON has well observ'd p. 40. where there are two Partys in a Republic 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 intail'd