acquainted with the whole proceedings of the Council of
legislators, and of the prytans, where it was asserted and
cleared from all objections and doubts: to the end that I may
supply what was wanting in the promulgated epitome to a more full
and perfect narrative of the whole, I shall rather take the
commonwealth practically; and as it has now given an account of
itself in some years' revolutions (as Dicearchus is said to have
done that of Lacedaemon, first transcribed by his hand some three
or four hundred years after the institution), yet not omitting to
add for proof to every order such debates and speeches of the
legislators in their Council, or at least such parts of them as
may best discover the reason of the government; nor such ways and
means as were used in the institution or rise of the building,
not to be so well conceived, without some knowledge given of the
engines wherewithal the mighty weight was moved. But through the
entire omission of the Council of legislators or workmen that
squared every stone to this structure in the quarries of ancient
prudence, the proof of the first part of this discourse will be
lame, except I insert, as well for illustration as to avoid
frequent repetition, three remarkable testimonies in this place.

The first is taken out of the Commonwealth of Israel: "So
Moses hearkened to the voice of Jethro, his father-in-law, and
did all that he had said. And Moses chose able men out of all
Israel, and made them heads over the people;" tribunes, as it is
in the vulgar Latin; or phylarchs, that is, princes of the
tribes, sitting upon twelve thrones, and judging the twelve
tribes of Israel; and next to these he chose rulers of thousands,
rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens, which
were the steps and rise of this commonwealth from its foundation