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 Godsfor that the WHOLE EARTH was his. Well. The people consent*; and GoD 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. 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 Chap. xxxiii. 16.

Exod. xix. 8.

+ Chap. xx.

-

And all

§ 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,

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the

the two Societies, civil and religious, were of course intirely 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 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 shew, that a THEOCRACY WAS NECESSARY, as the separation could not be effected any other way.

It appears, from what hath been shewn 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

"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 66 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

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"that

Such laws, therefore, were necessary to support a separation. But penal Laws, inforced 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

"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, 3, 4, 5.

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"whom he ordered to be destroyed without mercy. "From whence it follows, that all the 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 Gos"pel 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 contcnpt; 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 ex"ceptions 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 into"lerance, so contrary to our clearest ideas of natural " equity*"

rr

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

* Voions presentement cette iv. objection. On la peut tirer de ce que la loi du Moïse, &c, Commentaire Philosophique, Part ii. Chap. 4.

dwelt

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 shew, 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 t. 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,

par les exceptions qu'il a mise dans sa parole à presque outes les notions communes de la raison.

Letter concerning Toleration, p. 37. Ed. 1689.

who