But let us consider his first and greatest work; for when it was
resolved on by our forefathers to leave Egypt, and return to their own
country, this Moses took the many tell thousands that were of the people,
and saved them out of many desperate distresses, and brought them home
in safety. And certainly it was here necessary to travel over a country
without water, and full of sand, to overcome their enemies, and, during
these battles, to preserve their children, and their wives, and their prey;
on all which occasions he became an excellent general of an army, and a
most prudent counselor, and one that took the truest care of them all;
he also so brought it about, that the whole multitude depended upon him.
And while he had them always obedient to what he enjoined, he made no manner
of use of his authority for his own private advantage, which is the usual
time when governors gain great powers to themselves, and pave the way for
tyranny, and accustom the multitude to live very dissolutely; whereas,
when our legislator was in so great authority, he, on the contrary, thought
he ought to have regard to piety, and to show his great good-will to the
people; and by this means he thought he might show the great degree of
virtue that was in him, and might procure the most lasting security to
those who had made him their governor. When he had therefore come to such
a good resolution, and had performed such wonderful exploits, we had just
reason to look upon ourselves as having him for a divine governor and counselor.
And when he had first persuaded himself note
that his actions and designs were agreeable to God's will, he thought it
his duty to impress, above all things, that notion upon the multitude;
for those who have once believed that God is the inspector of their lives,
will not permit themselves in any sin. And this is the character of our
legislator: he was no impostor, no deceiver, as his revilers say, though
unjustly, but such a one as they brag Minos note
to have been among the Greeks, and other legislators after him; for some
of them suppose that they had their laws from Jupiter, while Minos said
that the revelation of his laws was to be referred to Apollo, and his oracle
at Delphi, whether they really thought they were so derived, or supposed,
however, that they could persuade the people easily that so it was. But
which of these it was who made the best laws, and which had the greatest
reason to believe that God was their author, it will be easy, upon comparing
those laws themselves together, to determine; for it is time that we come
to that point. note
Now there are innumerable differences in the particular customs and laws
that are among all mankind, which a man may briefly reduce under the following
heads: Some legislators have permitted their governments to be under monarchies,
others put them under oligarchies, and others under a republican form;
but our legislator had no regard to any of these forms, but he ordained
our government to be what, by a strained expression, may be termed a Theocracy,
note
by ascribing the authority and the power to God, and by persuading all
the people to have a regard to him, as the author of all the good things
that were enjoyed either in common by all mankind, or by each one in particular,
and of all that they themselves obtained by praying to him in their greatest
difficulties. He informed them that it was impossible to escape God's observation,
even in any of our outward actions, or in any of our inward thoughts. Moreover,
he represented God as unbegotten, note
and immutable, through all eternity, superior to all mortal conceptions
in pulchritude; and, though known to us by his power, yet unknown to us
as to his essence. I do not now explain how these notions of God are the
sentiments of the wisest among the Grecians, and how they were taught them
upon the principles that he afforded them. However, they testify, with
great assurance, that these notions are just, and agreeable to the nature
of God, and to his majesty; for Pythagoras, and Anaxagoras, and Plato,
and the Stoic philosophers that succeeded them, and almost all the rest,
are of the same sentiments, and had the same notions of the nature of God;
yet durst not these men disclose those true notions to more than a few,
because the body of the people were prejudiced with other opinions beforehand.
But our legislator, who made his actions agree to his laws, did not only
prevail with those that were his contemporaries to agree with these his
notions, but so firmly imprinted this faith in God upon all their posterity,
that it never could be removed. The reason why the constitution of this
legislation was ever better directed to the utility of all than other legislations
were, is this, that Moses did not make religion a part of virtue, but he
saw and he ordained other virtues to be parts of religion; I mean justice,
and fortitude, and temperance, and a universal agreement of the members
of the community with one another; for all our actions and studies, and
all our words, [in Moses's settlement,] have a reference to piety towards
God; for he hath left none of these in suspense, or undetermined. For there
are two ways of coining at any sort of learning and a moral conduct of
life; the one is by instruction in words, the other by practical exercises.
Now other lawgivers have separated these two ways in their opinions, and
choosing one of those ways of instruction, or that which best pleased every
one of them, neglected the other. Thus did the Lacedemonians and the Cretians
teach by practical exercises, but not by words; while the Athenians, and
almost all the other Grecians, made laws about what was to be done, or
left undone, but had no regard to the exercising them thereto in practice.
But for our legislator, he very carefully joined these two methods
of instruction together; for he neither left these practical exercises
to go on without verbal instruction, nor did he permit the hearing of the
law to proceed without the exercises for practice; but beginning immediately
from the earliest infancy, and the appointment of every one's diet, he
left nothing of the very smallest consequence to be done at the pleasure
and disposal of the person himself. Accordingly, he made a fixed rule of
law what sorts of food they should abstain from, and what sorts they should
make use of; as also, what communion they should have with others what
great diligence they should use in their occupations, and what times of
rest should be interposed, that, by living under that law as under a father
and a master, we might be guilty of no sin, neither voluntary nor out of
ignorance; for he did not suffer the guilt of ignorance to go on without
punishment, but demonstrated the law to be the best and the most necessary
instruction of all others, permitting the people to leave off their other
employments, and to assemble together for the hearing of the law, and learning
it exactly, and this not once or twice, or oftener, but every week; which
thing all the other legislators seem to have neglected.
And indeed the greatest part of mankind are so far from living according
to their own laws, that they hardly know them; but when they have sinned,
they learn from others that they have transgressed the law. Those also
who are in the highest and principal posts of the government, confess they
are not acquainted with those laws, and are obliged to take such persons
for their assessors in public administrations as profess to have skill
in those laws; but for our people, if any body do but ask any one of them
about our laws, he will more readily tell them all than he will tell his
own name, and this in consequence of our having learned them immediately
as soon as ever we became sensible of any thing, and of our having them
as it were engraven on our souls. Our transgressors of them are but few,
and it is impossible, when any do offend, to escape punishment.
