But if all and every one of the laws of Israel being proposed by God, were no otherwise enacted than by covenant with the people, then that only which was resolved by the people of Israel was their law; and so the result of that commonwealth was in the people. Nor had the people the result only in matter of law, but the power in some cases of judicature; as also the right of levying war, cognizance in matter of religion, and the election of their magistrates, as the judge or dictator, the king, the prince: which functions were exercised by the Synagoga magna, or Congregation of Israel, not always in one manner, for sometimes they were performed by the suffrage of the people, viva voce, sometimes by the lot only, and at others by the ballot, or by a mixture of the lot with the suffrage, as in the case of Eldad and Medad, which I shall open with the Senate. The Senate of Israel, called in the old Testament the Seventy Elders, and in the New the Sanhedrim (which word is usually translated “the Council”), was appointed by God, and consisted of seventy elders besides Moses, which were at first elected by the people, but in what manner is rather intimated than shown. Nevertheless, because I cannot otherwise understand the passage concerning Eldad and Medad, of whom it is said “that they were of them that were written, but went not up to the tabernacle,” then with the Talmudists I conceive that Eldad and Medad had the suffrage of the tribes, and so were written as competitors for magistracy; but coming afterward to the lot, failed of it, and therefore went not up to the tabernacle, or place of confirmation by God, or to the session-house of the Senate, with the Seventy upon whom the lot fell to be senators; for the session-house of the Sanhedrim was first in the court of the tabernacle, and afterward in that of the Temple, where it came to be called the stone chamber or pavement. If this were the ballot of Israel, that of Venice is the same transposed; for in Venice the competitor is chosen as it were by the lot, in regard that the electors are so made, and the magistrate is chosen by the “suffrage of the great Council or assembly of the people.” But the Sanhedrim of Israel being thus constituted, Moses, for his time, and after him his successor sat in the midst of it as prince or archon, and at his left hand the orator or father of the Senate; the rest, or the bench, coming round with either horn like a crescent, had a scribe attending upon the tip of it.