Books about Preeminence from Amazon.com

Executive orders have become, since World War II, major presidential policy-making tools. They carry the force of law, require no congressional approval, and potentially bypass the legislative process. Previous research suggests that executive orders reduce the presidents' necessity to persuade other political actors and, thus, undermine the checks and balances of the American political system. However, presidents do not enjoy complete freedom when pursuing policies by decree. Forces within the political system constrain the presidents' unilateral action. In most cases, executive orders follow congressional intent. Executive orders that run against the interests of the majority in Congress only prevail when a set of favorable conditions exist in a president's political environment. These conditions include divisiveness in Congress, public support for the contemplated action, and support from core elements of a president's coalition..
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Although primogeniture is commonly assumed to have prevailed throughout the world and firstborns are regarded as most likely to achieve success, many of the most prominent figures in biblical literature are younger offspring, including Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Samuel, David, and Solomon. Adducing evidence from a wide range of disciplines, this study demonstrates that ancient Israelite fathers were free to choose their primary heirs. Rather than being either legally mandated or a protest against the prevailing norm, the Bible's propensity for younger offspring conforms to a widespread folk motif, evoking innocence, vulnerability, and destiny. Within the biblical context, this theme heightens God's role in supporting ostensibly unlikely heroes. Drawing on the resources of law, anthropology, folklore, and linguistics, Greenspahn shows how these tales serve as complex parables of God's relationship to his chosen people, also reflecting Israel's own discomfort with the contradiction between its theology of election and the reality of political weakness..
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a selection from the first chapter:
Almighty God, to whose efficacious Word all things owe their original, abounding in his own glorious Essence with infinite goodness and fecundity, did in the beginning Create Man after his own likeness, Male and Female, created he them; the true distinction of which Sexes, consists merle in the different site of those parts of the body, wherein Generation necessarily requires a Diversity: for both Male and Female he impartially endued with the same, and altogether indifferent (end of page 1) form of Soul, the Woman being possessed of no less excellent Faculties of Mind, Reason, and Speech, than the Man, and equally with him aspiring to those Regions of Bliss and Glory, where there shall be no exception of Sex. For though at the last Trumpets universal Alarm, when our recollected bodies shall start up amazed, to find themselves released from their Prisons of Darkness, we may perhaps appear in our respective proper Sexes, yet shall we not then either need or make use of Sex, but are promised by him who is Truth itself, a Conversation resembling that of blessed Angels in Heaven. Hence 'tis evident, that as to the essence of the Soul between Man and Woman, there can no Pre-eminence at all be challenged on either side, but the same innate worth and dignity of both the Image of their Creator being stamped as fairly, and shiningly as brightly in one, as the other; whereas in all other respects the noble and delicate Feminine Race, does most to infinity excel that rough?er??, boisterous kind, the Male. (end page 2)

This may at first seem an odd Assertion, and extravagantly Paradoxical, but will appear a certain Truth, when we have proved it (which is our present undertaking) not with empty flourishes of words, or gaudy Paint of Rhetoric, nor with those vain Logical Devices, where-with Sophisters too frequently inveigle unwary understandings, but by the Authority of the most Approved Authors, unquestioned Histories, and evident Reasons, as likewise with Testimonies of holy Writ, and Sanctions of both Civil and Canon Laws. Since Names are signs of things, and that all matter presents itself to us clothed in words, the Learned have advised us in all Discourses, First, To consider diligently the Notations or appellations of those things whereof we intend to Treat, which if we reduce to practice in our present Subject, we may observe, that Woman was made at first so much more excellent than Man, by how much she had given her a Name more worthy than he; the word Adam, signifying but Earth, whereas Eve, is interpreted Life; (end of page 3) whence it seems, Woman is no less to be preferred before Man, than Life itself before sordid and contemptible Earth. Nor let any weak heads fancy this Argument lame or invalid, because from names it passes judgment on things, since it must be acknowledged, that the All-wise Contriver both of names and things, well knew the things before he imposed names on them; and therefore (it being impossible he should be deceived) did undoubtedly bestow on them such fit and apposite names, as might best express their intrinsic Natures and Dignity. Nor is it only the holy Tongue that intimates this Sex's Pre-eminence, the Latins too seem very express in asserting it, among whom Woman is named Mulier, quasi Melior, as much as to say, Better, or more worthy than Man. And in our English Language, although

Some little Wits at Woman rail and ban,
Swearing she's called so, quasi woe Man;
Yet such wain Derivation are to blame,
Since God himself ???? Man's helpmeet name. .
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