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 an history of them, it would be a history of nothing f. 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, See the View of Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophy, Vol. XII. when 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 hist. 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 * See note [B] at the end of this Book. + Exod. xix. 5. division 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. 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 Chap. 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. 8. + Chap. xx. Exod. xix. 6—8. C 3 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 dili66 gently, and behold it be true, and the thing certain, that such "abomination is wrought in Israel: then shalt thou bring forth 3 "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 pena! 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, |