Myriade, who are not to judge in the Court when their own Case is judged. Difficult Cases they transmit, and appeals they bind over to the Court of five Myriades, if there be such a Court betwixt them and the Supreme Council: otherwise they transmit them to the Council.

The Causes which properly belong to the Court of five Myriades, are such as fall out betwixt parties of the several Myriades under them.

I will ascend no higher, in describing the Courts of the Superiour order: party because Gods Method is plain, and also it will be rarely of use in any Commonwealth; especially considering that which I farther propound.

Namely, seeing God himself was pleased to appoint a Prince, a chief Ruler, over every Tribe in Israel, who were distinguished, by that civil distinction of Kindreds.

By proportion thereunto, in populous Nations, where there be other civil distinctions of societies and cohabitations of men, viz. by Cities, Provinces, Countries, &c. should not they chuse a Prince, a chief Ruler of those several Precincts of civil society?

Whose Office is chiefly to take care of the good Government, firstly, of all the Superiour Rulers under him: as also of all the rest, as he hath opportunity, that the Lord may rule among them.

Likewise to hold a Court, consisting either of the Rulers of Myriades, or of five Myriades, or of ten Myriades, or of an hundred Myriades according to the greatness of the people in his Precincts.

This Court to be called the Court of the Prince, or Lord, or Chief Ruler of such a Precinct; and to be next unto the Supreme Council: from which Court, onely difficult Cases and Appeals have access to the Supreme Council, and to which they remit the determinations of the Cause, to receive its judgement: Lest the Supreme Council be oppressed with business from so many Courts, and thereby the people with delays of hearing and issue, occasioned thereby.

It seemeth to be right Orders, and according to Gods institution, that these Princes of the several Tribes or

Societies of men should be members of the Supreme Council: The whole Dominion being distributed unto the Supreme Counsellours, or to so many of them as may be meet. For the Princes of the Tribes of Israel (it seemeth to me) were members of the Sanhedrim or Supreme Council; because God commanded that they should be chosen very carefully from among the Elders of the people. Hence they will chuse the most choice of their Elders to send up with Moses to stand before God. Now they could not chuse better, fitter, and men more acceptable to God, out of all their Elders, then those whom God himself had chosen by name, to be Princes of the Tribes.

Besides, it is exceedingly harmonious, in the frame of this Government, that it should be so: for though whoever of the other Elders, whether of the single or Superiour Order, be chosen to the Supreme Council, it may seem requisite, they should leave the lower station, lest when Appeals have passed in the circuit of Gods Government, and come to the highest Council, there should be sundry of them, through whose judgement the Cause had formerly passed, which may prove prejudical both to their persons, and to the Cause.

But when it hath lastly passed through the Court of the Prince of the Tribe, meet it is that one of the last Court through which it passed, should be present in the Supreme Council, to give true information, how they lastly after all former Tryals did find the Cause.

But this is to be observed in the distribution of the whole Dominion to the several Supreme Counsellors, that no such civil Dominion is to be put upon or accepted by such Elders of Churches, as are Members of the high Council; as being such whose only Office and Work is to search the holy Scriptures, and give all attendance to declare the Divine Oracle of God in such Cases as are in hand, of what nature soever they be: yea, and if the Council see need, to call Ecclesiastical Councils, greater or lesser, to search out the mind of Christ; for his presence and blessing is in every Ordinance; and all joyntly conspire the advancement of his Kingdom, and the doing of his will.

The Election of all Superior Rulers, is to be after the

same manner as in the single form, viz, by all the people,* over whom they are to rule.

Some of the Princes of the Tribes of Israel, may seem to be Rulers of fifty thousands, or of fives Orders of Myriades: yet the Office of the Princes was not onely under that notion, but also as an head of a civil society, a kindred, an eminent part, a division of the Commonwealth: for some of the Tribes had but four Myriades, and some but three, and therefore could not in that way and order have a Ruler of five Myriades. Therefore they must needs be instituted under another consideration, viz, as being the head or chief Ruler over an eminent part, or division of the Commonwealth, being civilly divided into such societies.

CHAP. VIII.

So much for the Platform of the Lords Government. Now it remains to consider of the Laws by which these Rulers are to Govern the Lords people. The written Word of God is the perfect Systeme or Frame of Laws, to guide all the Moral actions of man, either towards God or man the Application whereof to every Case according to its circumstances, must be by the wisdom and discretion of the Judges, guided by the light of the Scriptures, and a pure Conscience.

The judgement and determination of a Cause, is nothing else, but the particular application of the Cause, according to all its circumstances, unto the Rule and Standard of Gods Word.

The Records of which judgements, are equivalent to Humane Laws. Which so far as the Case with all its circumstances considered is rightly applyed to the Rule of the Word, is a deduct, from Scripture, and bindeth the Consciences, both of Judges alway so to judge in the like case, and the people so to walk.

Which Records to order wisely, and publish for common

Or orders of men.

instruction and edification, is a work of great wisdom, and tendeth much to Gods glory, the good of the people, and the facilitating and expediting justice, among them. All Strangers, are to be accounted under the Government of those Orders where they reside, and where their business lieth; so as to have the benefit of the Government of the Lord, as our own people have.

FINIS.

A DISCOURSE

PRONOUNCED BEFORE THE SOCIETY, OCTOBER 31, 1844; ON THE COMPLETION OF FIFTY YEARS FROM ITS INCORPORATION.

BY JOHN G. PALFREY.

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY:

THE Completion of a half century since your association was incorporated has appeared to you a fit occasion for looking back to its origin and surveying its labors, and you have been pleased to direct me, as one of the least busy of your number, to put together some such account of its designs and its proceedings as the short time allowed by your arrangements would permit. I undertake the task with great diffidence of my ability to do it any justice, but with a promptness which not to show would be to prove myself a very unworthy member of your industrious brotherhood.

Our society takes its date from the year 1790. The generation immediately preceding that then upon the stage had had occasion to expend its energies in toils far different from those of science. The close of the Seven Years' War, in which the New England colonies, especially Massachusetts, had borne so onerous a part, was scarcely followed by a short breathing space before the contest of the Revolution began. Eight years of anxious struggle for independence, and six years more of exhaustion and disorder before a government was organized under the Federal Constitution, afforded little encouragement to pursuits requiring quiet and leisure for their votaries, and a settled state of the public mind for their due appreciation and patronage. Two learned societies, the American Philosophical Society, founded in 1769, and the American