Sanhedrim, or Senate, first elected by the people, as appears by
the words of Moses, took upon them ever after, without any
precept of God, to substitute their successors by ordination;
which having been there of civil use, as excommunication,
community of goods, and other customs of the Essenes, who were
many of them converted, came afterward to be introduced into the
Christian Church. And the election of the judge, suffes, or
dictator, was irregular, both for the occasion, the term, and the
vacation of that magistracy. As you find in the book of Judges,
where it is often repeated, that in those days there was no king
in Israel -- that is, no judge; and in the first of Samuel, where
Eli judged Israel forty years, and Samuel, all his life. In
Lacedaemon the election of the Senate being by suffrage of the
people, though for life, was not altogether so unequal, yet the
hereditary right of kings, were it not for the agrarian, had
ruined her.

Athens and Rome were unequal as to their agrarian, that of
Athens being infirm, and this of Rome none at all; for if it were
more anciently carried it was never observed. Whence, by the time
of Tiberius Gracchus, the nobility had almost eaten the people
quite out of their lands, which they held in the occupation of
tenants and servants, whereupon the remedy being too late, and
too vehemently applied, that commonwealth was ruined.

These also were unequal in their rotation, but in a contrary
manner. Athens, in regard that the Senate (chosen at once by lot,
not by suffrage, and changed every year, not in part, but in the
whole) consisted not of the natural aristocracy, nor sitting long
enough to understand or to be perfect in their office, had no