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I have thus particularly noticed the severity of the Laws against idolatry, and the peculiar circumstances, of the Mosaic code sanctioning many of its prohibitions by penalties which the direct interference of the Deity alone could inflict; because the submission to laws so severe, and the promulgation of prohibitions so sanctioned, appear unaccountable, if we do not admit the truth of the Mosaic history; which declares, that the Jewish government was founded on a solemn covenant with God, when, on mount Horeb, the divine glory appeared to the assembled nation, and the Lord talked with them face to face out of the midst of the fire, and delivered the ten commandments, and declared unto the people: "If ye will obey my voice indeed, "and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure “unto me above all people; for all the earth is mine. And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. "And Moses came, and called for the elders of the people, "and laid before their faces all these words which the Lord "commanded him. And all the people answered together, and "said, All that the Lord hath spoken, we will do.”* On this solemn compact was founded the Jewish government in which the Lord Jehovah appeared as the immediate sovereign, and the Jewish people his immediate subjects. Hence such prohibitions as human tribunals could not easily take cognizance of, were sanctioned by penalties which God, their sovereign, undertook to execute. Hence, no authority, by the Mosaic constitution, was vested in any one man or body of men in the Jewish government, nor even in the whole nation assembled, to make new +Laws, or alter old ones, their sovereign, Jehovah, reserving this power to himself. Hence the Jewish constitution recognized no one hereditary chief magistrate; and no power was given to any one body, or even to the whole nation, to elect any supreme governor. It was reserved to Jehovah, their sovereign, to appoint as he pleased who was to preside under the title of judge, and with an authority delegated from him.‡ And finally, hence every act of idolatry was not only an apostasy from true * Exod. xix. 5, &c.; also Deut. xxvi. 16, &c.

Deut. iv. 1 and 2, and xii. 32. Vide also Lowman on the Civil Government of the Hebrews, ch. vii.: and Spencer de Theocratia Judaica, cap. i.; also Leydeker's learned work de Republica Hebræorum, Lib. V. de Theocratia Hebræorum.

Vide Numbers, xxvii. 15, &c. for the appointment of Joshua; Lowman, ib. ch. x. and Spencer de Theocratia Judaica, cap. iv. sect. iii. p. 198.

religion, but an act of TREASON AGAINST THE STATE,* a breach of that original contract and charter, on which the Jewish constitution was founded, and on which the national property and privileges depended; and therefore, according to the principles of every established government in the world, merited and received capital punishment.

NEXT TO IDOLATRY, the Jewish Law seems to have condemned with peculiar emphasis, and punished with peculiar. severity, ALL KINDS OF IMPURITY; † every species of incestuous connexion and unnatural crime, was punished with death. Besides, not only was forcible violation capital, as by our Law, but the violation of the marriage vow. The ADULTERER and the ADULTERESS WERE CONDEMNED TO SUFFER A PUBLIC AND IGNOMINIOUS EXECUTION. The same punishment was the consequence, where the female, though not married, was betrothed in marriage. In a word, we perceive the most anxious care to cut off every greater degree of licentiousness, and stigmatize even the least with infamy; yet never did this care degenerate into an extravagant reverence for unnatural austerity, and monastic celibacy. In every rank, from the high priest to the lowest peasant, marriage was encouraged and honourable. Our blessed Lord, indeed, has declared, that some permissions relating to marriage, granted to the Jews for the hardness of their hearts, were inconsistent with the more pure and refined morality of the Gospel. Yet notwithstanding this, we perceive in the Jewish Law so strong an opposition to the usual licentiousness of Eastern manners, and so decided a superiority in this respect above the legislators and the philosophers of the heathen world, and still more above their religious institutions, as tend strongly to prove, that a system so favourable to the interests of virtue, and restraining so powerfully and yet so judiciously the excesses of passion-a system introduced at that early period, in an Eastern climate, and amongst a people accustomed

* Vide Lowman on the Civil Code of the Hebrews, ch. xii. p. 231, and ch. xii. p. 263, &c.; Warburton's Divine Leg. B. V. sect. ii.; Spenceri Dissertatio de Theocratia Judaica, p. 205.

+ Vide Lev. ch. xviii. and ch. xx. from ver. 10 to the end; also Deut. xxvii. from 20, and xxii. from 22, as to the punishment of adultery, &c.

Vide Matt. v. 27, &c.; and xix. from 3 to 10, plainly prohibiting polygamy and divorce, which were not punishable amongst the Jews, when under certain limitations.

to be irresistibly led by objects of sense-had a higher origin than mere human wisdom; and that to secure submission to its restraints, required an interference more powerful than mere human authority.

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Another crime which the Jewish Law punished with peculiar severity, was DISOBEDIENCE TO PARENTS. Every one," says the Law, "that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely "put to death."* And again, "If a man have a stubborn and "rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or "the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened "him, will not hearken unto them; then shall his father and "his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders "of his city, and unto the gate of his place: and they shall say "unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and re"bellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a "drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with "stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear."+ Undoubtedly, in thus enforcing filial obedience, the Jewish Law laid the foundation of every virtue. He who despises parental instruction, tramples on parental authority, and feels no gratitude for parental affection in his earlier years, will probably, as his passions strengthen, and his depraved habits grow inveterate, trample on the authority of laws both human and divine, and requite with ingratitude all the benefits which man can confer, and all the blessings which the Divinity bestows. But in establishing this important principle, we see nothing is harsh or overstrained; the parents have no such arbitrary power as under the ancient Roman Law, which armed the father with the absolute right of life and death over his children, and even allowed him to sell them three times over: a power which lasted during their whole lives, or ended only with the third sale. Nor was such extreme parental power deemed unreasonable in Greece; where it was maintained, that the power of a father of a family over his slaves and his children was absolute. On the contrary, in the Jewish Law all is just and moderate.§

* Lev, xx. 9.

Deut. xxi. 18-21..

Vide the Laws of the Twelve Tables, Table iv. Law the first and second; Hook's Roman History, Vol. II. p. 143.

§ Maimonides More Nevochim, Pars III. cap. xli. p. 463.

The offence of cursing father or mother implied such hardened impiety, as well as such extreme contempt and malignity towards the authors of our existence, as strikes the heart with horror, and indicates the extremest moral depravity. Equally worthy of reprobation and punishment, is persevering and obstinate stubbornness and rebellion against that exercise of parental authority which would restrain drunkenness and debauchery. And when such disobedience was investigated by a solemn and public trial, and established by a judicial conviction, it surely merited infamy and death: "That all Israel should hear and fear, and "put away evil from among them."

MURDER, as it is the highest degree of malignity to which human depravity can ascend, so it was pursued with just rigour by the Jewish Law. "If a man come presumptuously upon "his neighbour, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him "from mine altar, that he may die."* But the wisdom of the Jewish Law in securing a fair trial for this offence, so apt to rouse immediate revenge, and in providing asylums for those who were guilty not of deliberate murder, but of manslaughter, is so conspicuous, as to have attracted the notice of the most judicious modern reasoners on criminal law. Moses directed the establishment of six cities of refuge,† three on each side Jordan, at such distances as made immediate flight to some one of them easy from every part of the Jewish territory; hither the manslayer was to fly, until the action was tried: if innocent, he was to continue in the city of refuge, until the death of the high priest for the time being, when it might be supposed the passion of the friends to the deceased would have subsided. On this Law, the sagacious Montesquieu observes" These Laws of "Moses were perfectly wise. The man who involuntarily killed "another was innocent, but he was obliged to be taken away "from before the eyes of the relatives of the deceased; Moses "therefore appointed an asylum for such unfortunate persons. "Great criminals deserved not a place of safety, and they had 66 none. The criminals who would resort to the temple from all parts, might disturb divine service. If persons who had com"mitted manslaughter had been driven out of the country, as "was customary among the Greeks, they had reason to fear they

"would worship strange gods. All these considerations made "them establish cities of refuge, where they might remain until "the death of the high priest."

On this subject it is necessary to observe, that as liberty is equally valuable with life, the Jewish Law with the strictest equity ordained, that if any man were convicted of attempting to reduce any fellow-citizen to slavery, he should be punished with death.+

The only offence not already noticed, which was capitally punished in the Mosaic code, was that of PRESUMPTUOUS DISOBEDIENCE to the decision of the chief magistrate, whether high priest or judge, who should preside at the supreme national court of judicature which gave judgment on the last appeal. The necessity of this was obvious: any man or body of men who were guilty of such contumacious resistance to the supreme authority of the state, evidently violated the original compact of national union; and declared themselves not only alienated from, but at war, as well with the whole body of the nation, as that great Jehovah, whom the Jewish people recognized as their sovereign, the author of their laws, and the head of their national confederacy.

Such were the offences punished capitally by the Jewish Law: perhaps to these we ought to add, that of bearing false witness in a case where the life of the accused was at stake. For, in all instances, the punishment to be inflicted on the false witness was the same as the mischief that would have followed, had his testimony been received as true.§

In the other penal laws of the Mosaic code, there prevails a constant spirit of mildness and equity, I believe unequalled in any other system of jurisprudence, ancient or modern. Personal violence and assault were punished by damages, or by retaliating on the offender a punishment similar to the injury his violence had inflicted, as the judges should determine. I cannot but notice here, how strangely the Jews perverted this principle of retaliation recognized by their Law; and how obstinately some *Spirit of Laws, Book. xxv. ch. iii.

Exod. xxi. 16.

Deut. xvii. 12. Vide also Lowman on the Civil Government of the Hebrews, ch. xiv.

Deut. xix. 16, &c.

Exod. xxi, 23. Lev. xxiv. 18. Deut. xix. 19 and 21.