acres of land each.* This land they held independent of all temporal superiors, by direct tenure from the Lord Jehovah, their Sovereign, by whose power they were to acquire their territory, and under whose protection only they could retain it. On this principle, the lands so distributed were unalienable: “The land shall not be sold for ever," says the Law, “for the "land is mine saith the Lord: ye are strangers and sojourners "with me."+

Thus the basis of the Hebrew constitution was an equal Agrarian Law. But this Law was guarded by other provisions most wise and salutary. The accumulation of debt was prevented, first by prohibiting every Jew from accepting of interest‡ from any of his fellow-citizens; next, by establishing a regular release of all debts every seventh year; and finally, by ordaining that no lands could be alienated for ever, but must, on each year of jubilee, or seventh sabbatic year, revert to the families which originally possessed them. Thus, without absolutely depriving individuals of all temporary dominion over their landed property, it re-established, every fiftieth year, that original and equal distribution of it, which was the foundation of the national polity; and as the period of such reversion was fixed and regular, all parties had due notice of the terms on which they negotiated; there was no ground for public commotion or private complaint.

One part of the regulation respecting the release in the year of jubilee, deserves our notice: it did not extend to houses in cities; these, if not redeemed within one year after they were sold, were alienated for ever.§ This circumstance must have given property in the country a decided preference above property in cities, and induced every Jew to reside on and improve his land, and employ his time in the care of flocks and agriculture, which, as they had been the occupation of those revered patriarchs from whom the Jews descended, were with them the

* Vide Lowman on the Hebrew Government, ch. iv.-Vide also Cunæus de Republica Hebræorum, cap. ii.; De Lege Agraria, et inestimabili ejus Utilitate; and Leydeker de Republica Hebræorum, Lib. V. cap. xi. xii. xiii.; and the Universal History, Vol. I. p. 617.

+ Lev, xxv. 23.

Ib. ver. 35, 36.; and see the entire chapter.

Ib. ver. 29 and 30.

Vide Jew's Letters to Voltaire, Part III. Let. i. § 5, note.

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most honourable of all employments. division of land was to the several tribes according to their families, so that each tribe was settled in the same county, and each family in the same barony or hundred. Nor was the estate of any family in one tribe permitted to pass into another, even by the marriage of an heiress. So that, not only was the original balance of property preserved, but the closest and dearest connexions of affinity attached to each other the inhabitants of every vicinage. Thus, domestic virtue and affection had a more extensive sphere of action: the happiness of rural life was increased, a general attention to virtue and decorum was promoted, from that natural emulation which each family would feel to preserve unsullied the reputation of their vicinage; and the poor might every where expect more ready assistance, since they implored it from men, whose sympathy in their sufferings would be quickened by hereditary friendship and hereditary connexion.

But while the Jewish Agrarian Law secured the perpetual maintenance of a numerous, virtuous, and independent yeomanry, it did not prevent the existence of an higher rank of men, who should possess superior property and influence; a rank so essential to the subordination and tranquillity of social life. Such a rank of men had always existed amongst the Jews; we find them bearing their due part in the solemn act of allegiance by which all Israel submitted to the sovereignty of Jehovah : "Ye stand all of you this day," says the legislator, "before the "Lord your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, "and your officers, and all the men of Israel; that you should "enter into covenant with the Lord your God."‡ We find repeated notice taken of the princes of the tribes of their fathers, heads of thousands in Israel; the rulers of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, of tens, who were civil judges in lesser causes, and also entrusted with the various gradations of military command. We find twelve princes of the tribes, and fifty-eight heads of families, forming the first model of the celebrated San

* Vide Fleury on the Manners of the Israelites, ch. iii.

+ Vide Numbers, xxvii. which directs a due portion of the inheritance of their tribe to be given to the daughters of Zelophehad, he having no sons; and Numbers xxxvi. which directs the marriages of heiresses within their own tribe.

‡ Deut. xxix. 10.; also Numbers, i. and xi. 16, and xxxiv.

hedrim, and, by the divine appointment, sharing the authority of the legislator. The princes of the tribes presided at the original distribution of the lands; and the instance of Caleb, who obtained for his own portion the mountain of Hebron with its cities, proves they were attended to, as it was natural they should, in the distribution of the national property. And it has been proved by geographical researches, that the computation of territory which supposed a distribution of from sixteen to twenty-five acres for each of the six hundred thousand yeomanry, still left an abundant overplus to supply the nobility and gentry with estates suitable to their rank, in an age and country where the most honourable personages employed themselves in agriculture, and. though hospitable and generous, were unacquainted with that expensive splendour and ostentatious magnificence, which consumes the revenues of provinces, in the erection of palaces, the support of equipages, and the indulgencies of luxury.

*

Another effect of the Mosaic Agrarian Law, which it is necessary to notice, was the invincible barrier which it opposed against all attacks of hostile violence, and all internal attempts on the freedom of the Jewish state. It appears, that every freeholder+ was obliged to attend at the general muster of the

* Vide Lowman on the Hebrew Government, ch. iii. The lowest computation of the extent of the land of Judæa, makes it 160 miles in length by 110 in breadth, containing 11,264,000 acres, and giving above sixteen acres to each of the 600,000 yeomen freeholders, with an overplus of 1,264,000 acres for the Levitical cities, the princes of tribes, the heads of families, and other public uses. The authors of the Universal History state the length to have been about 70 leagues or 210 miles, the breadth about 30 leagues or 90 miles. This would give a greater extent, viz. 18,900 square miles, instead of 17,600. Vide Universal History, Vol. 1. p. 580.; and the Abbé Fleury on the Manners of the Israelites, Part II. ch. iii.

+ Deut. xx. 5.-These directions to the officers to "speak to the people, "saying, What man is there of you, that hath built a new house, and hath "not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in battle, "and another man dedicate it," &c. prove two things:-First, that all were obliged to attend the summons to war, and not depart until excused by the authority of the commanders: And next, that the obligation to such attendance was not limited to the immediately approaching war on the invasion of Canaan, but was to be perpetual; for it would have been idle to talk of exempting those who had built a house and not dedicated it, or planted a vineyard and not eaten the fruits thereof, from going to war, at a time when the whole nation was collected in camp, before they had so much as entered on the land they were to settle in, and when not a single man of them (at least of nine tribes and a half) could have possessed either house or vineyard.

national army, and to serve in it as long as occasion required, except only such as could plead certain specific excuses, stated by the Law, and which were formed with a wise and benevolent attention to the natural feelings, and even to the pardonable weaknesses of the human mind. This being the condition on which all landed property was held, the Agrarian Law secured a body of six hundred thousand men enured to labour and industry, and ready to offer themselves at their country's call. And to facilitate every military array,* the princes of the tribes, the heads of families, the rulers over thousands, and hundreds, and fifties, and tens, who in peace exercised certain civil offices, united with these offices proportionable military commands, heading their respective tribes and families, and determinate portions of the militia of their vicinage. This great body of national yeomanry, in which every private landholder possessed an independent property, was commanded by men equally independent, respectable for their property, their civil authority, and, above all, their revered ancestors; and acquiring their military rank, almost by hereditary right. Such a body of men, so commanded, presented an insuperable obstacle to treacherous ambition and political intrigue, on any design to overturn the Hebrew constitution, and assume despotic power, too strong to be terrified, too opulent to be bribed, too attached to each other and to their officers to be disunited, any attempt to enslave such

* Vide Lowman on the Civil Government of the Hebrews, p. 73, from comparing Exodus xviii. 21, with Num. xxxi. 14, that the division of the people for civil purposes was exactly the same as that for military purposes. In both cases they were divided into thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens, and the chiefs of these numbers are in both places expressed by the same Hebrew word, w; and in the Septuagint translation, the same Greek words, expressive of military command, are applied to both. It may appear an objection, that in Deut. xx. 9, it is said in our translation, "That "when the officers have made an end of speaking unto the people, they shall "make captains of the armies to lead the people.' But the original Hebrew appears clearly to mean, that then the captains shall take their post, 17p91, at the head of the army. With which sense the Syriac version agrees; vide Biblia Waltoni. Patrick observes (without having the present question at all in contemplation) "And if we translate the words as they may be out of "the Hebrew, they shall place or set captains of the hosts in the head or the "front of the people." The rotation of 24,000 men, appointed to attend on David every month, are described so as to indicate their being arranged by this old and familiar division; 1 Chron. xxvii. 1. "Now the Children of Israel, after their number, the chief fathers and captains of thousands "and hundreds, and their officers," &c. Lowman quotes the authorities of Harrington, Sigonius, Menochius and Calmet; to which we may add Leydeker, p. 416, whose opinion is of great weight; and the authors of the Universal History, Book I. ch. vii. Vol. I. p. 701.

a people, or subvert a constitution so guarded, would have been the extremity of madness; and we may safely pronounce, no state ever existed where the constitution was more stable, and the national liberty more perfectly secure, than amongst the Jews, while they obeyed the statutes ordained by their inspired Legislator.

Nor were these institutions less wisely adapted to secure the state against foreign violence, and, at the same time, prevent offensive wars and remote conquests: pursuing in this, but by means infinitely more wisely contrived, and permanently effectual, the same objects which Lycurgus afterwards attempted. He in vain prohibited from engaging in offensive wars, a people who were trained to no other business than military exercises, and sought no other distinction than military glory. Far different was the effect of the Jewish Agrarian Law; it provided, indeed, a hardy body of six hundred thousand yeomanry, ever ready to protect their country when assailed; but, perpetually employed as they were in agriculture, attached to domestic life, enjoying the society of friends and relatives, by whom they were encircled, all war must have been to them in the highest degree wearisome and odious. Religion concurred with their mode of life, to prevent them from being captivated by the false splendour of military glory. On returning from battle, even if victorious, in order to bring them back to more peaceful feelings after the rage of war, the Law ordered that they should consider themselves as polluted by this perhaps necessary slaughter, and unworthy of thus appearing in the camp of Jehovah ;* they were therefore to employ a whole day in purifying themselves, before they were admitted. Besides, their force was entirely infantry, the law forbidding even their kings to multiply horses in their train; and the ordinance requiring the attendance of all the males three times every year at Jerusalem, proved the intention of their Legislator to confine the nation within the limits of the promised land, and rendered long and distant wars and conquests impossible, without renouncing that religion which was incorporated with their whole civil polity, the charter by which they held all their property, and enjoyed all their rights. In the circumstances of the Jewish polity we have hitherto considered, there is some resemblance to the institutions of sub

* Vide Numbers, ch. xix. 13 to 16.; and xxxi. 19.