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 inured 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

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, ; 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 had 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, p, 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 Leydekker, p. 416, whose opinion is of great weight; and the authors of the Universal History Book I. ch. vii. Vol. I. P. 701.

be terrified, too opulent to be bribed, too attached to each other and to their officers to be disunited, any attempt to enslave such 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 as incorporated with their whole civil polity, the charter by hich they held all their property, and enjoyed all their rights. In the circumstances of the Jewish polity we have hitherto

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

considered, there is some resemblance to the institutions of subsequent Lawgivers; yet how decided is the superiority of the Mosaic code. But in the regulations as to the tribe of Levi, we see an object pursued, which until christianity was established, no Lawgiver but the Jewish thought of attending to. Ministers of religion are indeed found in every state. Wherever any idol was worshipped, there must have been altars and priests, there generally were soothsayers and diviners; but such men never attempted any thing beyond the immediate performance of religious ceremonies, or employing that influence over the public mind, which their sacred functions gave them, to promote private gain, or, in some instances, political views. Religious and moral instruction to the great mass of the people, they never attempted, and never desired. But the Jewish legislator set apart the entire tribe of Levi, one twelfth of the nation, not merely to perform the rites and sacrifices which the ritual enjoined, (a purpose which I do not now particularly insist on) but to diffuse over the great mass of the people, religious and moral instruction, for which they were expressly set apart. "Of Levi," says the legislator, (when in his last solemn hymn he sketches the characters and the fortunes of the different tribes) "Let thy Urim and thy Thummim be with thy holy one; they have "observed thy word, and kept thy covenant; they shall teach "Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law: they shall put in"cense before thee, and whole burnt-sacrifice upon thine altar."* To them was the custody of the sacred volume consigned, with the ark of the covenant: and Moses commanded the priests, the sons of Levi, and the elders of Israel," At the end of every "seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the "feast of tabernacles, when all Israel is come to appear before "the Lord thy God, in the place which he shall choose; thou "shalt read this Law before all Israel, in their hearing.t "Gather the people together, men and women and children, " and the stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear,

66

* Deut. xxxiii. 8-10.

† Among the various wise reasons for choosing this period, one most principal appears to be, its being the year of release, when the general abolition of debts and discharge from personal slavery, periodically took place; circumstances which would necessarily secure constant attention to this solemnity, and contribute to insure the observance of this command. Thus closely were the religious and civil parts of the Mosaic. code connected.

:

"and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and "observe to do all the words of this Law; and that their children “which have not known any thing, may hear and learn to fear "the Lord your God, as long as you live in the land whither "ye go to possess it."* This public and solemn periodical instruction, though eminently useful, was certainly not the entire of their duty; they were bound, from the spirit of this ordinance, to take care that at all times the aged should be improved and the children instructed in the knowledge and the fear of God, the adoration of his Majest; and the observance of his Law and for this purpose the peculiar situation and privileges of the tribe of Levi, as regulated by the divine appointment, admirably fitted them. Possessed of no landed property, and supported by the tithes and offerings which they received in kind, they were little occupied with labour or secular care deriving their maintenance from a source which would necessarily fail if the worship and the laws of God were neglected, they were deeply interested in their support. Their cities being dispersed through all the tribes† and their families permitted to intermarry with all, they were every where at hand to admonish and instruct; exclusively possessed of the high-priesthood, as well as of all other religious offices, and associated with the high-priest and judge in the supreme court of judicature, and with the elders of every city in the inferior tribunals, and guardians of the cities of refuge where those who were guilty of homicide fled for an asylum, they must have acquired such influence and reverence amongst the people, as were necessary to secure attention to their instructions: and they were led to study the rules of moral conduct, the principles of equity, and above all, the Mosaic code, with unceasing attention; but they were not laid under any vows of celibacy, or monastic austerity and retirement, and thus abstracted from the intercourse and the feelings of social life. Thus circumstanced, they were assuredly well calculated to answer the purpose of their institution, to preserve and consolidate the union of all the other tribes, to instruct and forward the Jews in knowledge, virtue and piety; "To teach Jacob the judgments, and Israel the law of Jehovah;" that they might hear and fear," and learn to obey the will of "their Sovereign and their God." And as no more important Deut xvii. 9. and xxvi. 8.

* Deut. xxxi. 10-13.

Numbers xxxv,

object could be aimed at by any Lawgiver, so the almost total neglect of other legislators in this respect, and the caution and wisdom of the Jewish institutions for this purpose, seem to supply one important presumotive argument for the divine original of the Mosaic code.

Hitherto we have considered the Jewish Law chiefly as it secured the rights and promoted the happiness of the higher and middling classes of society, the nobility and gentry, the Levites and the great mass of the Jewish yeomanry or freemen.* But the Mosaic Law extended its paternal care to the very lowest classes, the stranger and the slave, the poor, the fatherless and the widow. These it represents as the peculiar objects of the divine care, and denounces against any injury to them peculiar indignation and punishment from God. "If a stranger sojourn "with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him; but the stranger "that dwelleth among you shall be unto you as one born among "you and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers "in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord thy God."† "The "tithes of the third year thou shalt give to the Levite, the "stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that they may eat "within thy gates, and be filled."‡

That part of the Hebrew constitution which forbade the acceptance of interest § from a fellow-citizen, and established a septennial abolition of debts, and a periodical restitution of all lands which had been alienated from their original proprietors, though necessary for the general balance and security of the Hebrew Government, might yet have operated to increase in some instances the pressure of poverty, by rendering it more difficult to obtain immediate relief. It is therefore important to observe how anxiously the Legislator guards against any such effect from these regulations. "If there be among you," says the Law, "a poor man, one of thy brethren, within any of thy "gates, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou "shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy

* Vide the Jewish Letters, Part III. Letter iv. Universal History, B. I. ch. vii. sect. 4. on the Laws relating to the sabbatic and jubilee years, p. 613 and 617. + Lev. xix. 33, 34. Deut. xxvi. 12.

Interest from any one not a fellow-citizen, was permitted, but subject to the limitation of using him with the strictest regard to equity and benevolence, which the passages quoted in the last paragraph require.