"That of Israel (as was shown by my right noble Lord Phosphorus de Auge, in the opening of the commonwealth) consisted of seventy elders, elected at first by the people. But whereas they were for life, they ever after (though without any divine precept for it) substituted their successors by ordination, which ceremony was most usually performed by imposition of hands; and by this means a commonwealth of as popular institution as can be found became, as it is accounted by Josephus, aristocratical.
From this ordination derives that which was introduced by the Apostles into the Christian Church; for which cause I think it is that the Presbyterians would have the government of the Church to be aristocratical, though the Apostles, to the end, as Iconceive, that they might give no occasion to such a mistake, but show that they intended the government of the Church to be popular, ordained elders, as has been shown, by the holding up of hands (or free suffrage of the people) in every congregation or ecclesia: for that is the word in the original, being borrowed from the civil congregations of the people in Athens and Lacedaemon, which were so called; and the word for holding up of hands in the text is also the very same, which signified the suffrage of the people in Athens, chiroton&&ante&; for the suffrage of the Athenians was given per chirotonian, says Emmius.
"The Council of the Bean (as was shown by my Lord Navarchus de Paralo in his full discourse), being the proposing Senate of Athens (for that of the Areopagites was a judicatory), consisted of 400, some say 500 senators, elected annually, all at once, and by a mere lot without suffrage. Wherefore though the Senate, to correct the temerity of the lot, had power to cast out such as they should judge unworthy of that honor, this related to manners only, and was not sufficient to repair the commonwealth, which by such means became impotent; and forasmuch as her Senate consisted not of the natural aristocracy, which in a commonwealth is the only spur and rein of the people, it was cast headlong by the rashness of her demagogues or grandees into ruin; while her Senate, like the Roman tribunes (who almost always, instead of governing, were rather governed by the multitude), proposed not to the result only, but to the debate also of the people, who were therefore called to the pulpits, where some vomited, and others drank, poison.
"The Senate of Lacedaemon, most truly discovered by my Lord Laco de Scytale, consisted but of thirty for life, whereof the two kings, having but single votes, were hereditary, the rest elected by the free suffrage of the people, but out of such as were sixty years of age. These had the whole debate of the commonwealth in themselves, and proposed to the result only of the people. And now the riddle which I have heretofore found troublesome to unfold, is out; that is to say, why Athens and Lacedaemon, consisting each of the Senate and the people, the one should be held a democracy, and the other an aristocracy, or laudable oligarchy, as it is termed by Isocrates; for that word is not, wherever you meet it, to be branded, Seeing it is used also by Aristotle, Plutarch, and others, sometimes in a good sense. The main difference was that the people in this had the result only, and in that the debate and result, too. But for my part, where the people have the election of the Senate, not bound to a distinct order, and the result, which is the sovereign power, I hold them to have that share in the government (the Senate being not for life) whereof, with the safety of the commonwealth, they are capable in nature, and such a government, for that cause, to be democracy; though I do not deny but in Lacedaemon, the paucity of the senators considered, it might be called oligarchy, in comparison of Athens; or, if we look on their continuance for life, though they had been more, aristocracy.
"The Senate of Rome (whose fame has been heard to thunder in the eloquence of my Lord Dolabella d'Enyo) consisting of 300, was, in regard of the number, less oligarchical than that of Lacedaemon; but more in regard of the patricians, who, having an hereditary capacity of the same, were not elected to that honor by the people; but, being conscribed by the censors, enjoyed it for life. Wherefore these, if they had their wills, would have resolved as well as debated; which set the people at such variance with them as dissolved the commonwealth; whereas if the people had enjoyed the result, that about the agrarian, as well as all other strife, must of necessity have ceased.
"The Senates of Switzerland and Holland (as I have learnt of my Lords Alpester and Glaucus), being bound up (like the sheaf of arrows which the latter gives) by leagues, lie like those in their quivers; but arrows, when they come to be drawn, fly from this way and from that; and I am contented that these concerned us not.
"That of Venice (by the faithful testimony of my most excellent Lord Linceus de Stella) has obliged a world, sufficiently punished by its own blindness and ingratitude, to repent and be wiser: for whereas a commonwealth in which there is no senate, or where the senate is corrupt, cannot stand, the great Council of Venice, like the statue of Nilus, leans upon an urn or waterpot, which pours forth the Senate in so pure and perpetual a stream, as being unable to stagnate, is forever incapable of corruption. The fuller description of this Senate is contained in that of Oceana; and that of Oceana in the foregoing orders. To every one of which, because something has been already said, I shall not speak in particular. But in general, your Senate, and the other assembly, or the prerogative, as I shall show in due place, are perpetual, not as lakes or puddles, but as the rivers of Eden; and are beds made, as you have seen, to receive the whole people, by a due and faithful vicissitude, into their current. They are not, as in the late way, alternate.
Alternate life in government is the alternate death of it.
