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 clection 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 shewn more at large in the first volume t.

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 prcservation 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

Such a kind of union and incorporation 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, B. II. Sect. 1. pp. 309, 310.

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 Gov, 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 crimethat could be committed against the State, as tending,' by unavoidable consequence, to dissolve the Constitution. For the one GOD 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, speaking of the Jewish Theocracy, he tells us that Moses did not make Religion a part of Virtue, but Virtue a part of Religion. The meaning is, that, as in all human Societies, obedience to the Law is moral Virtue; under a THEOCRACY, it is Religion.

III. The punishment of Idolatry, by Law, had this farther circumstance of equity, that it was punishing The kings of Israel and Judah being, as we shall shew, indeed no other.

+ Αἴτιον δ ̓ ὅτι καὶ τῷ τρόπῳ τῆς νομοθεσίας πρὸς τὸ χρήσιμον πάντων ἀεὶ πολὺ διήνεγκεν & γὰρ μέρος τῆς ἀρέῆς ἐποίησε τὴν ἐυσίβειαν, ἀλλὰ ταύτης τὰ μέρη τἄλλα συνεῖδε καὶ καλέτησε λέγω δὲ τὴν δικαιοσύνην, τὴν καρτερίαν, τὴν σωφροσύνην, τὴν τῶν πολιτῶν πρὸς ἀλλήλως ἐν ἅπασι συμφωνίαν. p. 483. Har. Ed.

the

the rebellion of those who had chosen the Government under which they lived, when freely proposed to them. Hence, in the Law against idolatry, the crime is, with great propriety, called the TRANSGRESSION OF THE COVENANT *.

Thus we see, the Law in question stands clear of the cavils of Infidels, and the abuse of Intolerants †.

But to this, the defender of the common rights of subjects may be apt to object, that "these penal laws were unjust, because no contract to give up the rights "of conscience can be binding."

To which I reply, with a plain and decisive fact, That none of all the idolatrous worship the Jews ever fell into, from the time of giving the Law to the total dissolution of the Republic, was MATTER OF CONSCIENCE; but always of convenience; such as procuring some temporal good, which they wantonly affected, or averting some temporal evil, which they servilely feared. The truth of which appears from hence, that, in the midst of all their idolatries, the GOD of their Fathers, as we shall see, was ever owned to be the Creator and first Cause of all things; and the Religion taught by Moses, to be a Revelation from

heaven.

But it may be asked, What if their commission of idolatry had, at any time, proved matter of conscience; i.e. such an action as they thought they were obliged in duty to perform?

I reply, the question would have weight, had the Law in dispute been of human institution. But as it was given by GoD, who knows the future equally with the past and present, and saw the case would not happen, it is altogether impertinent. The Question,

. Deut. xvii. 2.

See note [C] at the end of this Book.

indeed,

indeed, points out to us, the danger and absurdity in any human legislature to make penal Laws for restraining the exercise of Religion, on any pretence whatsoever.

Thus it is seen, that a separation, so necessary to preserve the Unity, could not have been supported without PENAL LAWS against idolatry; and, at the same time, seen that such penal laws can never be equitably instituted but under a Theocracy. The consequence is, that A THEOCRACY WAS NECESSARY.

But this form of Government was highly convenient likewise. The Israelites, on their leaving Egypt, were sunk into the lowest practices of idolatry. To recover them, therefore, by the discipline of a separation, it was necessary that the idea of GOD and his attributes should be impressed upon them in the most sensible manner. But this could not be done, commodiously, under his character of GoD of the Universe: under his character of KING of Israel it well might. Hence it is, we find him in the Old Testament so frequently represented with affections analogous to human passions. The Civil relation, in which he stood to these people, made such a representation natural; the grossness of their conceptions made the representation necessary; and the guarded manner in which it was always qualified, prevented it from being mischievous. Hence, another instance of the wisdom of this Economy; and of the folly of Spinoza, and others, who would conclude from it, that Moses and the Prophets had themselves gross conceptions of the Deity. Nor should the indiscretion of those Divines pass uncensured, who have taught that GOD, in the Old Testament, looks on man with a less gracious and benign aspect, than in the New. An error, which at one time gave birth to the most absurd and monstrous of the ancient heresies; and hath at all times furnished a handle

to

to infidelity*. But GOD, whenever he represents himself under the idea of Lord of the Universe, makes one uniform revelation of his nature, throughout all his Dispensations, as gracious and full of compassion; as good to ALL, and whose tender mercies are OVER ALL HIS WORKS: yet condescending to become the tutelary God, and civil Magistrate of the Jews, it cannot but be, that he should be considered as having his peculiar inspection attached to this People, and as punishing their transgressions with severity.

These appear to me the true reasons of the Theocratic form of government. With such admirable wisdom was the Jewish Economy adapted, to effect the ends it had in view! Yet, notwithstanding the splendour of divinity which shines through every part of this Theocratic form, Mr. Foster, a dissenting preacher, tells us roundly, that it is all an idle dream; and that he will undertake to defend the Law, which punishes idolatry with death, "not on dark and ima"ginary, but on clear and solid principles; I therefore "add, (says he) supposing the THEOCRATIC form of

government amongst the Jews to be a point incon"testible, it seems scarce capable of affording a full "and satisfactory answer to the objection raised against "the Hebrew Law for devoting idolaters to death. "For when the people of Israel, fond of novelty, "and of imitating the customs of other nations, were "stubbornly and inflexibly resolved, notwithstanding "all the remonstrances of the Prophet Samuel to the contrary, to have a visible and mortal King; God

It must be owned (says Tindal) that the same spirit (I dare not call it a spirit of cruelty) does not alike prevail throughout the Old Testament: the nearer we come to the times of the Gospel, the milder it appeared. Christianity as old as the Creation, p. 241.See too Lord Bolingbroke's Posthumous Works throughout.

upon