"But the liveries, over and above the right of these elections by their divisions mentioned, being a.s.sembled all together at the guild of the city, const.i.tute another a.s.sembly called the common hall.
"The common hall has the right of two other elections; the one of the lord mayor, and the other of the two sheriffs, being annual magistrates.
The lord mayor can be elected out of no other than one of the twelve companies of the first ranks; and the common hall agrees by the plurality of suffrages upon two names, which, being presented to the lord mayor for the time being, and the court of the aldermen, they elect one by their scrutiny. For so they call it, though it differs from that of the commonwealth. The orator or a.s.sistant to the lord mayor in holding of his courts, is some able lawyer elected by the court of aldermen, and called the recorder of Emporium.
"The lord mayor being thus elected, has two capacities: one regarding the nation, and the other the city. In that which regards the city, he is president of the court of aldermen, having power to a.s.semble the same, or any other council of the city, as the common council or common hall, at his will and pleasure; and in that which regards the nation, he is commander-in-chief of the three tribes whereinto the city is divided; one of which he is to bring up in person at the national muster to the ballot, as his vice-comites, or high sheriffs, are to do by the other two, each at their distinct pavilion, where the nine aldermen, elected censors, are to officiate by three in each tribe, according to the rules and orders already given to the censors of the rustic tribes. And the tribes of the city have no other than one common phylarch, which is the court of aldermen and the common council, for which cause they elect not at their muster the first list called the prime magnitude.
"The conveniences of this alteration of the city government, besides the bent of it to a conformity with that of the nation, were many, whereof I shall mention but a few: as first, whereas men under the former administration, when the burden of some of these magistracies lay for life, were oftentimes chosen not for their fitness, but rather unfitness, or at least unwillingness to undergo such a weight, whereby they were put at great rates to fine for their ease; a man might now take his share in magistracy with that equity which is due to the public, and without any inconvenience to his private affairs. Secondly, whereas the city (inasmuch as the acts of the aristocracy, or court of aldermen, in their former way of proceeding, were rather impositions than propositions) was frequently disquieted with the inevitable consequence of disorder in the power of debate exercised by the popular part, or common council; the right of debate being henceforth established in the court of aldermen, and that of result in the common council, killed the branches of division in the root. Which for the present may suffice to have been said of the city of Emporium.
"That of Hiera consists as to the national government of two tribes, the first called agoroea, the second propola; but as to the peculiar policy of twelve manipuls, or wards divided into three cohorts, each cohort containing four wards, whereof the wards of the first cohort elect for the first year four burgesses, one in each ward, the wards of the second cohort for the second year four burgesses, one in each ward, and the wards of the third cohort for the third year four burgesses, one in each ward, all triennial magistrates; by which the twelve burgesses, making one court for the government of this city according to their instructions by act of Parliament, fall likewise into an annual, triennial, and perpetual revolution.
"This court being thus const.i.tuted, makes election of divers magistrates; as first, of a high steward, who is commonly some person of quality, and this magistracy is elected in the Senate by the scrutiny of this court; with him they choose some able lawyer to be his deputy, and to hold the court; and last of all they elect out of their own number six censors.
"The high steward is commander-in-chief of the two tribes, whereof he in person brings up the one at the national muster to the ballot, and his deputy the other at a distinct pavilion; the six censors chosen by the court officiating by three in each tribe at the urns; and these tribes have no other phylarch but this court.
"As for the manner of elections and suffrage, both in Emporium and Hiera, it may be said, once for all, that they are performed by ballot, and according to the respective rules already given.
"There be other cities and corporations throughout the territory, whose policy being much of this kind, would be tedious and not worth the labor to insert, nor dare I stay. Juvenum ma.n.u.s emicat ardens."
I return, according to the method of the commonwealth, to the remaining parts of her orbs, which are military and provincial; the military, except the strategus, and the polemarchs or field-officers, consisting of the youth only, and the provincial consisting of a mixture both of elders and of the youth.
To begin with the youth, or the military orbs, they are circles to which the commonwealth must have a care to keep close. A man is a spirit raised by the magic of nature; if she does not stand safe, and so that she may set him to some good and useful work, he spits fire, and blows up castles; for where there is life, there must be motion or work; and the work of idleness is mischief, but the work of industry is health.
To set men to this, the commonwealth must begin betimes with them, or it will be too late; and the means whereby she sets them to it is education, the plastic art of government. But it is as frequent as sad in experience (whether through negligence, or, which in the consequence is all one or worse, over-fondness in the domestic performance of this duty) that innumerable children come to owe their utter perdition to their own parents, in each of which the commonwealth loses a citizen.
Wherefore the laws of a government, how wholesome soever in themselves, are such as, if men by a congruity in their education be not bred to find a relish in them, they will be sure to loathe and detest. The education therefore of a man"s own children is not wholly to be committed or trusted to himself. You find in Livy the children of Brutus, having been bred under monarchy, and used to a court life, making faces at the Commonwealth of Rome: "A king (say they) is a man with whom you may prevail when you have need there should be law, or when you have need there should be no law; he has favors in the right, and he frowns not in the wrong place; he knows his friends from his enemies. But laws are deaf, inexorable things, such as make no difference between a gentleman and an ordinary fellow; a man can never be merry for them, for to trust altogether to his own innocence is a sad life." Unhappy wantons! Scipio, on the other side, when he was but a boy (about two or three and twenty), being informed that certain patricians of Roman gentlemen, through a qualm upon the defeat which Hannibal had given them at Cannae, were laying their heads together and contriving their flight with the transportation of their goods out of Rome, drew his sword, and setting himself at the door of the chamber where they were at council, protested "that who did not immediately swear not to desert the commonwealth, he would make his soul to desert his body." Let men argue as they please for monarchy, or against a commonwealth, the world shall never see any man so sottish or wicked as in cool blood to prefer the education of the sons of Brutus before that of Scipio; and of this mould, except a Melius or a Manlius, was the whole youth of that commonwealth, though not ordinarily so well cast.
Now the health of a government and the education of the youth being of the same pulse, no wonder if it has been the constant practice of well-ordered commonwealths to commit the care and feeling of it to public magistrates. A duty that was performed in such a manner by the Areopagites, as is elegantly praised by Isocrates, "the Athenians (says he) write not their laws upon dead walls, nor content themselves with having ordained punishments for crimes, but provide in such a way, by the education of their youth, that there be no crimes for punishment."
He speaks of those laws which regarded manners, not of those orders which concerned the administration of the commonwealth, lest you should think he contradicts Xenophon and Polybius. The children of Lacedaemon, at the seventh year of their age, were delivered to the poedonomi, or schoolmasters, not mercenary, but magistrates of the commonwealth, to which they were accountable for their charge; and by these at the age of fourteen they were presented to other magistrates called the beidioei, having the inspection of the games and exercises, among which that of the platanista was famous, a kind of fight in squadrons, but somewhat too fierce. When they came to be of military age they were listed of the mora, and so continued in readiness for public service under the discipline of the polemarchs. But the Roman education and discipline by the centuries and cla.s.ses is that to which the Commonwealth of Oceana has had a more particular regard in her three essays, being certain degrees by which the youth commence as it were in arms for magistracy, as appears by--
The twenty-sixth order, inst.i.tuting, "That if a parent has but one son, the education of that one son shall be wholly at the disposition of that parent. But whereas there be free schools erected and endowed, or to be erected and endowed in every tribe of this nation, to a sufficient proportion for the education of the children of the same (which schools, to the end there be no detriment or hindrance to the scholars upon case of removing from one to another, are every of them to be governed by the strict inspection of the censors of the tribes, both upon the schoolmaster"s manner of life and teaching, and the proficiency of the children, after the rules and method of that in Hiera) if a parent has more sons than one, the censors of the tribes shall animadvert upon and punish him that sends not his sons within the ninth year of their age to some one of the schools of a tribe, there to be kept and taught, if he be able, at his own charges; and if he be not able, gratis, till they arrive at the age of fifteen years. And a parent may expect of his sons at the fifteenth year of their age, according to his choice or ability, whether it be to service in the way of apprentices to some trade or otherwise, or to further study, as by sending them to the inns of court, of chancery, or to one of the universities of this nation. But he that takes not upon him one of the professions proper to some of those places, shall not continue longer in any of them than till he has attained to the age of eighteen years; and every man having not at the age of eighteen years taken upon him, or addicted himself to the profession of the law, theology, or physic, and being no servant, shall be capable of the essays of the youth, and no other person whatsoever, except a man, having taken upon him such a profession, happens to lay it by ere he arrives at three or four and twenty years of age, and be admitted to this capacity by the respective. Phylarchs being satisfied that he kept not out so long with any design to evade the service of the commonwealth; but, that being no sooner at his own disposal, it was no sooner in his choice to come in. And if any youth or other person of this nation have a desire to travel into foreign countries upon occasion of business, delight, or further improvement of his education, the same shall be lawful for him upon a pa.s.s obtained from the censors in Parliament, putting a convenient limit to the time, and recommending him to the amba.s.sadors by whom he shall be a.s.sisted, and to whom he shall yield honor and obedience in their respective residences. Every youth at his return from his travel is to present the censors with a paper of his own writing, containing the interest of state or form of government of the countries, or some one of the countries, where he has been; and if it be good, the censors shall cause it to be printed and published, prefixing a line in commendation of the author.
"Every Wednesday next ensuing the last of December, the whole youth of every parish, that is to say, every man (not excepted by the foregoing part of the order), being from eighteen years of age to thirty, shall repair at the sound of the bell to their respective church, and being there a.s.sembled in presence of the overseers, who are to govern the ballot, and the constable who is to officiate at the urn, shall, after the manner of the elders, elect every fifth man of their whole number (provided that they choose not above one of two brothers at one election, nor above half if they be four or upward) to be a stratiot or deputy of the youth; and the list of the stratiots so elected being taken by the overseers, shall be entered in the parish book, and diligently preserved as a record, called the first essay. They whose estates by the law are able, or whose friends are willing, to mount them, shall be of the horse, the rest are of the foot. And he who has been one year of this list, is not capable of being re-elected till after another year"s interval.
"Every Wednesday next ensuing the last of January, the stratiots being mustered at the rendezvous of their respective hundreds, shall, in the presence of the jurymen, who are overseers of that ballot, and of the high constable who is to officiate at the urn, elect out of the horse of their troop or company one captain, and one ensign or cornet, to the command of the same. And the jurymen having entered the list of the hundred into a record to be diligently kept at the rendezvous of the same, the first public game of this commonwealth shall begin and be performed in this manner. Whereas there is to be at every rendezvous of a hundred, one cannon, culverin, or saker, the prize arms being forged by sworn armorers of this commonwealth, and for their proof, besides their beauty, viewed and tried at the tower of Emporium, shall be exposed by the justice of peace appertaining to that hundred (the said justice with the jurymen being judges of the game), and the judges shall deliver to the horseman that gains the prize at the career, one suit of arms being of the value 20, to the pikeman that gains the prize at throwing the bullet, one suit of arms of the value of 10, to the musketeer that gains the prize at the mark with his musket, one suit of arms of the value of 10, and to the cannoneer that gains the prize at the mark with the cannon, culverin, or saker, a chain of silver being the value of 10, provided that no one man at the same muster plays above one of the prizes. Whosoever gains a prize is bound to wear it (if it be his lot) upon service; and no man shall sell or give away any armor thus won, except he has lawfully attained to two or more of them at the games.
"The games being ended, and the muster dismissed, the captain of the troop or company shall repair with a copy of the list to the lord lieutenant of the tribe, and the high constable with a duplicate of the same to the custos rotulorum, or muster-master general, to be also communicated to the censors; in each of which the jurymen, giving a note upon every name of an only son, shall certify the list is without subterfuge or evasion; or, if it be not, an account of those upon whom the evasion or subterfuge lies, to the end that the phylarch or the censors may animadvert accordingly.
"And every Wednesday next ensuing the last of February, the lord lieutenant, custos rotulorum, the censors, and the conductor, shall receive the whole muster of the youth of that tribe at the rendezvous of the same, distributing the horse and foot with their officers, according to the directions given in the like case for the distribution of the elders; and the whole squadron being put by that means in battalia, the second game of this commonwealth shall begin by the exercise of the youth in all the parts of their military discipline according to the orders of Parliament, or direction of the Council of War in that case.
And the 100 allowed by the Parliament for the ornament of the muster in every tribe, shall be expended by the phylarch upon such artificial castles, citadels, or the like devices, as may make the best and most profitable sport for the youth and their spectators.
"Which being ended, the censors having prepared the urns by putting into the horse-urn 220 gold b.a.l.l.s, whereof ten are to be marked with the letter M and other ten with the letter P; into the foot-urn 700 gold b.a.l.l.s, whereof fifty are to be marked, with the letter M and fifty with the letter P; and after they have made the gold b.a.l.l.s in each urn, by the addition of silver b.a.l.l.s to the same, in number equal with the horse and foot of the stratiots, the lord lieutenant shall call the stratiots to the urns, where they that draw the silver b.a.l.l.s shall return to their places, and they that draw the gold b.a.l.l.s shall fall off to the pavilion, where, for the s.p.a.ce of one hour, they may chop and change their b.a.l.l.s according as one can agree with another, whose lot he likes better.
"But the hour being out, the conductor separating them whose gold b.a.l.l.s have no letter from those whose b.a.l.l.s are marked, shall cause the crier to call the alphabet, as first A; whereupon all they whose gold b.a.l.l.s are not marked, and whose surnames begin with the letter A, shall repair to a clerk appertaining to the custos rotulorum, who shall first take the names of that letter; then those of B, and so on, till all the names be alphabetically enrolled. And the youth of this list being 600 foot in a tribe, that is, 30,000 foot in all the tribes; and 200 horse in a tribe, that is, 10,000 horse in all the tribes, are the second essay of the stratiots, and the standing army of this commonwealth to be always ready upon command to march. They whose b.a.l.l.s are marked with M, amounting, by twenty horse and fifty foot in a tribe, to 2,500 foot and 500 horse in all the tribes, and they whose b.a.l.l.s are marked with P, in every point correspondent, are parts of the third essay; they in M being straight to march for Marpesia, and they of P for Panopea, to the ends and according to the further directions following in the order for the provincial orbs.
"If the polemarchs or field officers be elected by the scrutiny of the Council of War, and the strategus commanded by the Parliament or the Dictator to march, the lord lieutenants (who have power to muster and discipline the youth so often as they receive orders for the same from the Council of War) are to deliver the second essay, or so many of them as shall be commanded, to the conductors, who shall present them to the lord strategus at the time and place appointed by his Excellency to be the general rendezvous of Oceana, where the Council of War shall have the accommodation of horses and arms for his men in readiness; and the lord strategus having armed, mounted, and distributed them, whether according to the recommendation of their prize arms, or otherwise, shall lead them away to his shipping, being also ready and provided with victuals, ammunition, artillery, and all other necessaries; commanding them, and disposing of the whole conduct of the war by his sole power and authority. And this is the third essay of the stratiots, which being shipped, or marched out of their tribes, the lord lieutenants shall re-elect the second essay out of the remaining part of the first, and the Senate another strategus.
"If any veteran or veterans of this nation, the term of whose youth or militia is expired, having a desire to be entertained in the further service of the commonwealth, shall present him or themselves at the rendezvous of Oceana to the strategus, it is in his power to take on such and so many of them as shall be agreed by the polemarchs, and to send back an equal number of the stratiots.
"And for the better managing of the proper forces of this nation, the lord strategus, by appointment of the Council of War, and out of such levies as they shall have made in either or both of the provinces to that end, shall receive auxiliaries by sea or elsewhere at some certain place, not exceeding his proper arms in number.
"And whosoever shall refuse any one of his three essays, except upon cause shown, he be dispensed withal by the phylarch, or, if the phylarch be not a.s.sembled, by the censors of his tribe, shall be deemed a helot or public servant, shall pay a fifth part of his yearly revenue, besides all other taxes, to the commonwealth for his protection, and be incapable of bearing any magistracy except such as is proper to the law.
Nevertheless if a man has but two sons, the lord lieutenant shall not suffer above one of them to come to the Urn at one election of the second essay, and though he has above two sons, there shall not come above half the brothers at one election; and if a man has but one son, he shall not come to the urn at all without the consent of his parents, or his guardians, nor shall it be any reproach to him or impediment to his bearing of magistracy."
This order, with relation to foreign expeditions, will be proved and explained together with--
The twenty-seventh order, "Providing, in case of invasion apprehended, that the lords high sheriffs of the tribes, upon commands received from the Parliament or the Dictator, distribute the bands of the elders into divisions, after the nature of the essays of the youth; and that the second division or essay of the elders, being made and consisting of 30,000 foot and 10,000 horse, be ready to march with the second essay of the youth, and be brought also by the conductors to the strategus.
"The second essay of the elders and youth being marched out of their tribes, the lords high sheriffs and lieutenants shall have the remaining part of the annual bands both of elders and youth in readiness, which, if the beacons be fired, shall march to the rendezvous to be in that case appointed by the Parliament or the Dictator: And the beacons being fired, the curiata comitia, or parochial congregations, shall elect a fourth both of elders and youth to be immediately upon the guard of the tribes, and dividing themselves as aforesaid, to march also in their divisions according to orders, which method in case of extremity shall proceed to the election of a third, or the levy of a second, or of the last man in the nation, by the power of the lords high sheriffs, to the end that the commonwealth in her utmost pressure may show her trust that G.o.d in his justice will remember mercy, by humbling herself, and yet preserving her courage, discipline, and constancy, even to the last drop of her blood and the utmost farthing.
"The services performed by the youth, or by the elders, in case of invasion, and according to this order, shall be at their proper cost and charges that are any ways able to endure it; but if there be such as are known in their parishes to be so indigent that they cannot march out of their tribes, nor undergo the burden in this case inc.u.mbent, then the congregations of their parishes shall furnish them with sufficient sums of money to be repaid upon the certificate of the same by the Parliament when the action shall be over. And of that which is respectively enjoined by this order, any tribe, parish, magistrate, or person that shall fail, is to answer for it, at the Council of War, as a deserter of his country."
The Archon, being the greatest captain of his own, if not of any age, added much to the glory of this commonwealth, by interweaving the militia with more art and l.u.s.tre than any legislator from or before the time of Servius Tullius, who const.i.tuted the Roman militia. But as the bones or skeleton of a man, though the greatest part of his beauty be contained in their proportion or symmetry, yet shown without flesh are a spectacle that is rather horrid than entertaining, so without discourses are the orders of a commonwealth; which, if she goes forth in that manner, may complain of her friends that they stand mute and staring upon her. Wherefore this order was thus fleshed by the Lord Archon:
"MY LORDS:
"Diogenes seeing a young fellow drunk, told him that his father was drunk when he begot him. For this, in natural generation, I must confess I see no reason; but in the political it is right. The vices of the people are from their governors; those of their governors from their laws or orders; and those of their laws or orders from their legislators. Whatever was in the womb imperfect, as to her proper work, comes very rarely or never at all to perfection afterward; and the formation of a citizen in the womb of the commonwealth is his education.
"Education by the first of the foregoing orders is of six kinds: at the school, in the mechanics, at the universities, at the inns of court or chancery, in travels, and in military discipline, some of which I shall but touch, and some I shall handle more at large.
"That which is proposed for the erecting and endowing of schools throughout the tribes, capable of all the children of the same, and able to give to the poor the education of theirs gratis, is only matter of direction in case of very great charity, as easing the needy of the charge of their children from the ninth to the fifteenth year of their age, during which time their work cannot be profitable; and restoring them when they may be of use, furnished with tools whereof there are advantages to be made in every work, seeing he that can read and use his pen has some convenience by it in the meanest vocation. And it cannot be conceived but that which comes, though in small parcels, to the advantage of every man in his vocation, must amount to the advantage of every vocation, and so to that of the whole commonwealth. Wherefore this is commended to the charity of every wise-hearted and well-minded man, to be done in time, and as G.o.d shall stir him up or enable him; there being such provision already in the case as may give us leave to proceed without obstruction.
"Parents, under animadversion of the censors, are to dispose of their children at the fifteenth year of their age to something; but what, is left, according to their abilities or inclination, at their own choice.
This, with the mult.i.tude, must be to the mechanics, that is to say to agriculture or husbandry, to manufactures, or to merchandise.
"Agriculture is the bread of the nation; we are hung upon it by the teeth; it is a mighty nursery of strength, the best army, and the most a.s.sured knapsack; it is managed with the least turbulent or ambitious, and the most innocent hands of all other arts. Wherefore I am of Aristotle"s opinion, that a commonwealth of husbandmen--and such is ours--must be the best of all others. Certainly my lords, you have no measure of what ought to be, but what can be, done for the encouragement of this profession. I could wish I were husband good enough to direct something to this end; but racking of rents is a vile thing in the richer sort, an uncharitable one to the poorer, a perfect mark of slavery, and nips your commonwealth in the fairest blossom. On the other side, if there should be too much ease given in this kind, it would occasion sloth, and so destroy industry, the princ.i.p.al nerve of a commonwealth. But if aught might be done to hold the balance even between these two, it would be a work in this nation equal to that for which Fabius was surnamed Maximus by the Romans.
"In manufactures and merchandise the Hollander has gotten the start of us; but at the long run it will be found that a people working upon a foreign commodity does but farm the manufacture, and that it is really entailed upon them only where the growth of it is native; as also that it is one thing to have the carriage of other men"s goods, and another for a man to bring his own to the best market. Wherefore (nature having provided encouragement for these arts in this nation above all others, where, the people growing, they of necessity must also increase) it cannot but establish them upon a far more sure and effectual foundation than that of the Hollanders. But these educations are in order to the first things or necessities of nature; as husbandry to the food, manufacture to the clothing, and merchandise to the purse of the commonwealth.
"There be other things in nature, which being second as to their order, for their dignity and value are first; and such to which the other are but accommodations; of this sort are especially these: religion, justice, courage, and wisdom.
"The education that answers to religion in our government is that of the universities. Moses, the divine legislator, was not only skilful in all the learning of the Egyptians, but took also into the fabric of his commonwealth the learning of the Midianites in the advice of Jethro; and his foundation of a university laid in the tabernacle, and finished in the Temple, became that pinnacle from whence (according to many Jewish and Christian authors) all the learning in the world has taken wing; as the philosophy of the Stoics from the Pharisees; that of the Epicureans from the Sadducees; and from the learning of the Jews, so often quoted by our Saviour, and fulfilled in him, the Christian religion. Athens was the most famous university in her days; and her senators, that is to say, the Areopagites, were all philosophers. Lacedaemon, to speak truth, though she could write and read, was not very bookish. But he that disputes hence against universities, disputes by the same argument against agriculture, manufacture, and merchandise; every one of these having been equally forbid by Lycurgus, not for itself (for if he had not been learned in all the learning of Crete, and well travelled in the knowledge of other governments, he had never made his commonwealth), but for the diversion which they must have given his citizens from their arms, who, being but few, if they had minded anything else, must have deserted the commonwealth. For Rome, she had ingenium par ingenio, was as learned as great, and held our College of Augurs in much reverence.
Venice has taken her religion upon trust. Holland cannot attend it to be very studious. Nor does Switzerland mind it much; yet are they all addicted to their universities. We cut down trees to build houses; but I would have somebody show me, by what reason or experience the cutting down of a university should tend to the setting up of a commonwealth.
Of this I am sure, that the perfection of a commonwealth is not to be attained without the knowledge of ancient prudence, nor the knowledge of ancient prudence without learning, nor learning without schools of good literature, and these are such as we call universities.
"Now though mere university learning of itself be that which (to speak the words of Verulamius) "crafty men contemn, and simple men only admire, yet is it such as wise men have use of; for studies do not teach their own use, but that is a wisdom without and above them, won by observation. Expert men may execute, and perhaps judge, of particulars one by one; but the general councils and the plots, and the marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned." Wherefore if you would have your children to be statesmen, let them drink by all means of these fountains, where perhaps there were never any. But what though the water a man drinks be not nourishment, it is the vehicle without which he cannot be nourished.
"Nor is religion less concerned in this point than government: for take away your universities, and in a few years you lose it. "The holy Scriptures are written in Hebrew and Greek; they that have neither of these languages may think light of both; but find me a man that has one in perfection, the study of whose whole life it has not been. Again, this is apparent to us in daily conversation, that if four or five persons that have lived together be talking, another speaking the same language may come in, and yet understand very little of their discourse, in that it relates to circ.u.mstances, persons, things, times and places which he knows not. It is no otherwise with a man, having no insight of the times in which they were written, and the circ.u.mstances to which they relate, in the reading of ancient books, whether they be divine or human. For example, when we fall upon the discourse about baptism and regeneration that was between our Saviour and Nicodemus, where Christ reproaches him with his ignorance in this matter. "Art thou a doctor in Israel, and understandest not these things?" What shall we think of it?
or wherefore should a doctor in Israel have understood these things more than another, but that both baptism and regeneration, as was showed at large by my Lord Phosphorus, were doctrines held in Israel? I instance in one place of a hundred, which he, that has not mastered the circ.u.mstances to which they relate, cannot understand. Wherefore to the understanding of the Scripture, it is necessary to have ancient languages, and the knowledge of ancient times, or the aid of them who have such knowledge; and to have such as may be always able and ready to give such aid (unless you would borrow it of another nation, which would not only be base, but deceitful) it is necessary to a commonwealth that she have schools of good literature, or universities of her own.
"We are commanded, as has been said more than once, to search the Scriptures; and which of them search the Scriptures, they that take this pains in ancient languages and learning, or they that will not, but trust to translations only, and to words as they sound to present circ.u.mstances? than which nothing is more fallible, or certain to lose the true sense of Scriptures, pretended to be above human understanding, for no other cause than that they are below it. But in searching the Scriptures by the proper use of our universities, we have been heretofore blest with greater victories and trophies against the purple hosts and golden standards of the Romish hierarchy than any nation; and therefore why we should relinquish this upon the presumption of some, that because there is a greater light which they have, I do not know.
There is a greater light than the sun, but it does not extinguish the sun, nor does any light of G.o.d"s giving extinguish that of nature, but increase and sanctify it. Wherefore, neither the honor bore by the Israelitish, Roman, or any other commonwealth that I have shown, to their ecclesiastics, consisted in being governed by them, but in consulting them in matters of religion, upon whose responses or oracles they did afterward as they thought fit.
"Nor would I be here mistaken, as if, by affirming the universities to be, in order both to religion and government, of absolute necessity, I declared them or the ministry in any wise fit to be trusted, so far as to exercise any power not derived from the civil magistrate in the administration of either, if the Jewish religion were directed and established by Moses, it was directed and established by the civil magistrate; or if Moses exercised this administration as a prophet, the same prophet did invest with the same administration the Sanhedrim, and not the priests; and so does our commonwealth the Senate, and not the clergy. They who had the supreme administration or government of the national religion in Athens, were the first Archon, the rex sacrificulus, or high-priest, and a polemarch, which magistrates were ordained or elected by the holding up of hands in the church, congregation, or comitia of the people. The religion of Lacedaemon was governed by the kings, who were also high-priests, and officiated at the sacrifice; these had power to subst.i.tute their pythii, amba.s.sadors, or nuncios, by which, not without concurrence of the Senate, they held intelligence with the oracle of Apollo at Delphos. And the ecclesiastical part of the Commonwealth of Rome was governed by the pontifex maximus, the rex sacrificulus, and the Flamens, all ordained or elected by the people, the pontifex by the tribes, the King by the centuries, and the Flamens by the parishes.
"I do not mind you of these things, as if, for the matter, there were any parallel to be drawn out of their superst.i.tions to our religion, but to show that for the manner, ancient prudence is as well a rule in divine as human things; nay, and such a one as the apostles themselves, ordaining elders by the holding up of hands in every congregation, have exactly followed; for some of the congregations where they thus ordained elders were those of Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, the countries of Lycaona, Pisidia, Pamphilia, Perga, with Attalia. Now that these cities and countries, when the Romans propagated their empire into Asia, were found most of them commonwealths, and that many of the rest were endued with like power, so that the people living under the protection of the Roman emperors continued to elect their own magistrates, is so known a thing, that I wonder whence it is that men, quite contrary to the universal proof of these examples, will have ecclesiastical government to be necessarily distinct from civil power, when the right of the elders ordained by the holding up of hands in every congregation to teach the people, was plainly derived from the same civil power by which they ordained the rest of their magistrates. And it is not otherwise in our commonwealth, where the parochial congregation elects or ordains its pastor. To object the Commonwealth of Venice in this place, were to show us that it has been no otherwise but where the civil power has lost the liberty of her conscience by embracing popery; as also that to take away the liberty of conscience in this administration from the civil power, were a proceeding which has no other precedent than such as is popish.
"Wherefore your religion is settled after the following manner: the universities are the seminaries of that part which is national, by which means others with all safety may be permitted to follow the liberty of their own consciences, in regard that, however they behave themselves, the ignorance of the unlearned in this case cannot lose your religion nor disturb your government, which otherwise it would most certainly do; and the universities with their emoluments, as also the benefices of the whole nation, are to be improved by such augmentations as may make a very decent and comfortable subsistence for the ministry, which is neither to be allowed synods nor a.s.semblies, except upon the occasion shown in the universities, when they are consulted by the Council of State, and suffered to meddle with affairs of religion, nor to be capable of any other public preferment whatsoever; by which means the interest of the learned can never come to corrupt your religion, nor disturb your government, which otherwise it would most certainly do.
Venice, though she does not see, or cannot help the corruption of her religion, is yet so circ.u.mspect to avoid disturbance of her government in this kind, that her Council proceeds not to election of magistrates till it be proclaimed fora papalini, by which words such as have consanguinity with red hats, or relation to the Court of Rome, are warned to withdraw.