detect his impostures. However, he takes heart, and boldly engages his credit to confute him from his own history. This is a fair attempt. But he prevaricates on the very first onset. The sacred history, besides the many civil facts which it contains, has many of a miraculous nature. Of these, our freethinker will allow the first only to be brought in evidence. And then bravely attacks his adversary, who has now one hand tied behind him: for the civil and the miraculous facts, in the Jewish dispensation, have the same, nay, a nearer relation to each other, than the two hands of the same body; for these may be used singly and independently, though to disadvantage; whereas the civil and the miraculous facts can neither be understood nor accounted for, but on the individual inspection of both. This is confessed by one who, as clear-sighted as he was, certainly did not see the* consequence of what he so liberally acknowledged. "The miracles in the Bible," says his philosophic Lordship, "are not like those in Livy, detached pieces, that do not disturb the civil history, which goes on very well without them. But the miracles of the Jewish historian are intimately connected with all the civil affairs, and make a necessary and inseparable part. The whole history is founded in them; it consists of little else; and if it were not a history of them, it would be a history of nothing." †

From all this, I assume that where an unbeliever, a philosopher if you will, (for the poet Voltaire makes them convertible terms) pretends to show the falsehood of Moses's mission from Moses's own history of it; he who undertakes to confute his reasoning, argues fairly when he confutes it upon facts recorded in that history, whether they be of the miraculous or of the civil kind: since the two sorts are so inseparably connected, that they must always be taken together, to make the history understood, or the facts which it contains intelligible.

SECT. II.

ALLOWING it then, to have been God's purpose to perpetuate the knowledge of himself amidst an idolatrous world, by the means of a separated people; let us see how this design was brought about, when the family, he had chosen, was now become numerous enough to support itself under a separation; and idolatry, which was grown to its most gigantic stature,‡ was now to be repressed.

The Israelites were, at this time, groaning under the yoke of Egypt; whither the all-wise providence of God had conducted them, while they were yet few in number, and in danger of mixing and confounding themselves with the rest of the nations. In this distress, one of their own brethren is sent to them with a message from God, by the name and character of the GOD OF THEIR FATHERS, whose virtues God had promised to reward with distinguished blessings on their posterity. The message, accompanied with signs and wonders, denounced their speedy deliverance from Egyptian bondage, and their certain possession of the land of Canaan, the scene of all the promised blessings. The people hearken, and are delivered. They depart from Egypt; and in the third month from their departure, come to Mount Sinai. Here God first tells them by their leader, Moses, that, if they would obey his voice indeed, and keep his covenant, then they should be a PECULIAR TREASURE to him above all people, for that the WHOLE EARTH was his.* Where we see an example of what hath been observed above, that whenever an institution was given to this people, in compliance with the notions they had imbibed in Egypt, a corrective was always joined with it, to prevent the abuse. Thus, God having here told them, that if they would obey his voice they should be his peculiar treasure above all people (speaking in the character of a tutelary God); to prevent this compliance from falling into abuse, as the division of the several regions of the earth to several celestial rulers was inseparably connected with the idea of a tutelary deity, he adds, as a reason for making this people his peculiar, a circumstance destructive of that pagan notion of tutelary gods for that the WHOLE EARTH was his. Well. The people consent;† and Gon delivers the covenant to them, in the words of the two tables.‡

But this promise, of their being received for GOD's peculiar treasure, could be visibly performed no otherwise than by their separation from the rest of mankind. As on the other hand, their separation could not have been effected without this visible protection. And this, Moses observes in his intercession for the people: for wherein shall it be known here, that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not in that THOU GOEST WITH US? So shall we be SEPARATED, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth. The better, therefore, to secure this separation, God proposes to them, to become their KING. And, for reasons that will be explained anon, condescends to receive the magistracy, on their free choice. And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation-And all the people answered together and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do. God then delivers them a digest of their civil and religious laws, and settles the whole constitution both of church and state. Thus the Almighty becoming their KING, in as real a sense as he was their God, the republic of the Israelites was properly a THEOCRACY; in which the two societies, civil and religious, were of course entirely incorporated. A thing neither attended to nor understood. The name indeed is of familiar use: but how little men mean by it, is seen from hence, that those who, out of form, are accustomed to call it a theocracy, yet, in their reasonings about it, consider it as a mere aristocracy under the judges; and as * Exod. xix. 5. + Exod. xix. 8. ‡ Exod. xx. § Exod. xxxiii. 16. || For where God is King, every subject is, in some sense or other, a priest; because in that case, civil obedience must have in it the nature of religious ministration. Exod. xix. 6-8.

a mere monarchy under the kings: whereas, in truth, it was neither one nor the other, but a real and proper THEOCRACY, under both.

Thus was this famous SEPARATION made. But it will be asked, Why in so extraordinary a way? A way, in which the sagacious deist can discover nothing but the marks of the legislator's fraud, and the people's superstition-As to what a mere human lawgiver could gain by such a project, will be seen hereafter. At present, it will be sufficient, for the removal of these suspicions, to show, that

[I.] A THEOCRACY was NECESSARY, as the separation could not be effected any other way.

It appears, from what hath been shown above, that the Israelites had ever a violent propensity to mix with the neighbouring nations, and to devote themselves to the practices of idolatry: this would naturally, and did, in fact, absorb large portions of them. And the sole human means which preserved the remainder, was the severity of their civil laws against idolatry. Such laws, therefore, were necessary to support a separation. But penal laws, enforced by the ordinary magistrate, for matters of opinion, are manifestly unjust. Some way therefore was to be contrived to render these laws equitable. For we are not to suppose God would ordain any thing that should violate the rule of natural justice. Now these penal laws are equitable only in a theocracy: therefore was a THEO

CRACY NECESSARY.

That the punishment of opinions, by civil laws, under a THEOCRACY, is agreeable to the rules of natural justice, I shall now endeavour to prove. Unbelievers and intolerant Christians have both tried to make their advantage of this part of the Mosaic institution. The one using it as an argument against the divinity of the Jewish religion, on presumption that such laws are contrary to natural equity; and the other bringing it to defend their intolerant principles by the example of Heaven itself. But they are both equally deceived by their ignorance of the nature of a theocracy: which, rightly understood, clears the Jewish law from an embarrassing objection, and leaves the rights of mankind inviolate.

Mr Bayle, in an excellent treatise for toleration, when he comes to examine the arguments of the intolerants, takes notice of that which they bring from the example in question. "The fourth objection," says he, "may arise from hence, that the law of Moses gives no toleration to idolaters, and false prophets, whom it punishes with death; and from what the prophet Elijah did to the priests of Baal, whom he ordered to be destroyed without mercy. From whence it follows, that all the

"If there be found amongst you within any of thy gates which the LORD thy GOD giveth thee, man or woman that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy GOD in transgressing his covenant; and hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or the moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; and it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently, and behold it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel; then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman (which have committed that wicked thing) unto thy gates, even that man, or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones till they die."Deut. xvii. 2-5.

reasons I have employed, in the first part of this commentary, prove nothing, because they prove too much; namely, that the literal sense of the law of Moses, as far as relates to the punishment of opinions, would be impious and abominable. Therefore, since GOD could, without violating the eternal order of things, command the Jews to put false prophets to death, it follows, evidently, that he could, under the gospel also, command orthodox believers to inflict the same punishment upon heretics.

"I am not, if I rightly know myself, of that temper of mind, so thoroughly corrupted by the contagion of controversy, as to treat this objection with an air of haughtiness and contempt; as is the way when men find themselves incapable of answering to the purpose. I ingenuously own the objection to be strong; and that it seems to be a mark of GOD's sovereign pleasure, that we should not arrive at certainty in any thing, seeing he hath given exceptions in his holy word to almost all the common notices of reason. Nay, I know some who have no greater difficulties to hinder their believing that God was the author of the laws of Moses, and of all those revelations that occasioned so much slaughter and devastation, than this very matter of intolerance, so contrary to our clearest ideas of natural equity."*

Whether Mr Bayle himself was one of these backward believers, as by some of his expressions he gives us reason to suspect, is not material. That he dwelt with pleasure on this circumstance, as favouring his beloved scepticism, is too evident. But sure he went a little too far when he said, God's word contains exceptions to almost all the common notices of reason.† I hope to show, before I have done with infidelity, that it contains exceptions to none. Our excellent countryman Mr LOCKE, who wrote about this time on the same subject, and with that force and precision which is the character of all his writings, was more reasonable and modest in his account of this matter. As to the case, says he, of the Israelites in the Jewish commonwealth, who being initiated into the Mosaical rites, and made citizens of the commonwealth, did afterwards apostatize from the worship of the GOD of Israel; these were proceeded against as traitors and rebels, guilty of no less than high treason. For the commonwealth of the Jews, different, in that, from all others, was an absolute THEOCRACY; nor was there, nor could there be, any difference between the commonwealth and the church. The laws established there concerning the worship of the one invisible Deity were the civil laws of that people, and a part of their political government, in which GOD himself was the legislator. This he said; but it being all he said,

I shall endeavour to support his solution by such other reasoning as occurs to me. It will be necessary then to observe, that God, in his

infinite wisdom, was pleased to stand in two arbitrary relations towards the Jewish people, besides that natural one, in which he stood towards them and the rest of mankind in common. The first was that of a tutelary Deity, gentilitial and local; the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who was to bring their posterity into the land of Canaan, and to protect them there, as his peculiar people. The second was that of supreme magistrate and lawgiver. And in both these relations he was pleased to refer it to the people's free choice, whether or no they would receive him for their God and KING. For a tutelary deity was supposed by the ancients to be as much matter of election as a civil magistrate. The people, therefore, thus solemnly accepting him, these necessary consequences followed from the HOREB CONTRACT.

I. First, that as the national God and civil magistrate of the Jews centered in one and the same object, their civil policy and religion must be intimately united and incorporated;* consequently, their religion had, and very reasonably, A PUBLIC PART, whose subject was the society as such: though this part, in the national pagan religions, which had it likewise, was extremely absurd, as hath been shown more at large in the first volume.†

II. Secondly, as the two societies were thoroughly incorporated, they could not be distinguished; but must stand or fall together. Consequently the direction of all their civil laws must be for the equal preservation of both. Therefore, as the renouncing him for King was the throwing him off as God; and as the renouncing him for God was the throwing him off as King; idolatry, which was the rejecting him as GOD, was properly the crimen læsæ majestatis; and so justly punishable by the civil laws. But there was this manifest difference in these two cases, as to the effects. The renouncing God as civil magistrate might be remedied without a total dissolution of the constitution; not so, the renouncing him as tutelary GOD: because, though he might, and did appoint a deputy,‡ in his office of KING, amongst the Jewish tribes; yet he would have no substitute, as God, amongst the pagan deities. Therefore, in necessity as well as of right, idolatry was punishable by the civil laws of a THEOCRACY; it being the greatest crime that could be committed against the state, as tending, by unavoidable consequence, to dissolve the constitution. For the one God being the supreme magistrate, it subsisted in the worship of that God alone. Idolatry, therefore, as the renunciation of one God alone, was in a strict philosophic, as well as legal sense, the crime of lese majesty. Let us observe farther, that as, by such INCORPORATION, religious matters came under civil consideration, so likewise civil matters came under the religious. This is what Josephus would say, where, in his second book against Apion,

* Such a kind of union and incorporatien was most absurdly affected by MAHOMET, in imitation of the Jewish economy; whence, as might be expected, it appears that neither he nor his assistants understood any thing of its true nature.

↑ See Divine Legation, book ii. sect. i.

+ The kings of Israel and Judah being, as we shall show, indeed no other.