"
And if the Commonwealth of Rome was born of thirty parishes,
this of Oceana was born of 10,000. But whereas mention in the
birth of this is made of an equestrian order, it may startle such
as know that the division of the people of Rome, at the
institution of that commonwealth into orders, was the occasion of
its ruin. The distinction of the patrician as a hereditary order
from the very institution, engrossing all the magistracies, was
indeed the destruction of Rome; but to a knight or one of the
equestrian order, says Horace,
"Si quadringentis sex septem millia desunt,
Plebs eris."
By which it should seem that this order was not otherwise
hereditary than a man's estate, nor did it give any claim to
magistracy; wherefore you shall never find that it disquieted the
commonwealth, nor does the name denote any more in Oceana than
the duty of such a man's estate to the public.
But the surveyors, both in this place and in others,
forasmuch as they could not observe all the circumstances of this
order, especially that of the time of election, did for the first
as well as they could; and, the elections being made and
registered, took each of them copies of those lists which were
within their allotments, which done they produced --
The sixth order, directing "in case a parson or vicar of a
parish comes to be removed by death or by the censors, that the
congregation of the parish assemble and depute one or two elders
by the ballot, who upon the charge of the parish shall repair to
one of the universities of this nation with a certificate signed
by the overseers, and addressed to the vice-chancellor, which
certificate, giving notice of the death or removal of the parson
or vicar, of the value of the parsonage or vicarage, and of the
desire of the congregation to receive a probationer from that
university, the vice-chancellor, upon the receipt thereof, shall
call a convocation, and having made choice of a fit person, shall
return him in due time to the parish, where the person so
returned shall return the full fruits of the benefice or
vicarage, and do the duty of the parson or vicar, for the space
of one year, as probationer; and that being expired, the
congregation of the elders shall put their probationer to the
ballot, and if he attains not to two parts in three of the
suffrage affirmative, he shall take his leave of the parish, and
they shall send in like manner as before for another probationer;
but if their probationer obtains two parts in three of the
suffrage affirmative, he is then pastor of that parish.
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