A treatise of miscellany questions wherein many useful questions and cases of conscience are…A treatise of miscellany questions wherein many usefull questions and cases of conscience are…

2. The Jews when they had lost their State, power, and civill Government, had still under the Roman Emperors their Presbyteri and Archisynagogi. Whereof Mr. Selden in Eutych: pag: 15. 16. brings clear instances under Arcadius and Honorius. Now the Roman Emperors did not permit to the Jews their own civill Government, but only an Autonomy in Religion. So ibid: pag: 34. he showeth us that the Kings of England have permitted to the Jews in England their Presbyteratus, which he doth not deny, but half yield, to have been the same with their Sacerdotium.

2. The Jewes when they had lost their State, power, and civill Government, had still under the Romane Emperours their Presbyteri and Archisynagogi. Whereof Mr. Selden in Eutych: pag: 15. 16. brings cleare instances under Arcadius and Honorius. Now the Romane Emperours did not permit to the Jewes their owne civill Government, but onely an Autonomy in Religion. So ibid: pag: 34. he sheweth us that the Kings of England have permitted to the Jewes in England their Presbyteratus, which he doth not deny, but halfe yeeld, to have been the same with their Sacerdotium.

3. Although Mr. Selden, comment: in Eutych: Orig: pag. 17. &c. to 34. and in his Uxor Ebraica. lib. 1. chap. 15. holdeth that the Jewish Elders or Presbyters, were such as were created by imposition of hands, receiving thereby a judicial faculty or degree, so that thence forth they were capable of membership in the Sanhedrin, either of 23. or 71. and were fit to preside in judging of civill causes: and so endeavoureth to show that it was a civill, not a sacred or Ecclesiastical dignity and preferment; Yet he furnisheth me with some considerable arguments to confirm my opinion, beside that which was last mentioned. As 1. He tells us in Eutych. pag. 16. that nomina officiorum Sacrorum, ut patriarcha, Pr•byter, Apostolus, Diaconus, Primas Et Episcopus, in Christianismum ex Judaismi veteris usu, &c. manarunt. But if the Jewish Elders were not promoted to a sacred, but to a civill jurisdiction, that name should have been transferred to Magistrates, Judges, Parliament men, rather then to Church officers. 2. He tells of a divided, distinct, bounded & particular Ordination of the Jewish Elders, some of them being ordained to a faculty or power of judging, but not to judge of lawful or unlawful rites, others of them being ordained to judge of rites, but not of pecuniary causes. The form of words which he citeth, is this, Et sit tibi sacultas judicandi, sed ita ut minime sit tibi facultas decernendi quinam ritus illiciti, quinam liciti, aut sit tibi hujusmodi facultas decernendi, ita tamen ut causas pecuniarias non sit tibi facultas judicandi. Behold a sacred and a civill jurisdiction distinguished. Mr. Selden himself, uxor. Ebr. lib. 1 cap. 15. tells us that the word Presbyters or Elders, is by the Talmudical writers used no only for those who were created by imposition of hands to a Magistratical or judicial faculty, such as the members of the Sanhedrin, or such as were candidates in that faculty, and as it were expectants of a place, and memberships in their Courts of justice, but also for other fit and idoneous persons,