of their careful separation from all idolatrous nations-a separation essential to the accomplishment of the great design of their selection, which was the preservation and propagation of true religion in the world. At the same time, not only was the civil law engrafted on the moral, but the moral law itself was incorporated in the laws of the realm. Canaan was the property of the great theocratic King, which He delivered into the possession of the Israelites, on condition that they should give Him back two-tenths.* (1 Chron. xxix. 16; Lev. xxvii. 30-33; Num. xviii. 21, 24; Deut. xii. 17, 18, xiv. 22-29, xxvi. 12-14.) And not only did the Lord claim to be the King of the Israelites, but He caused them as it were to elect Him to this office. (Exod. xix. 4-8, comp. Judges viii. 23; 1 Sam. viii. 7, x. 19, xii. 12; 1 Chron. xxix. 23.) So that the Israelites were thus, as a nation, the covenant people of Jehovah; and it was distinctly understood that national prosperity or adversity would follow, in the way of reward or punishment, upon obedience or disobedience to His declared will.

We may here pause to notice, in the words of Dr. Kalisch, the difference between this true Theocracy and others. 'The Israelites were not the only people who had a theocratical form of government; the Egyptian kings also pretended to rule in the name and as the representatives of the gods, and so even at present the monarchs of Persia and Thibet. But these theocracies had, and have, no influence on the character and position of the people the monarchs assumed their presumptuous titles only to raise themselves and to degrade their nations. The heathen theocracies were, therefore, but other names for the most absolute despotism, and sources of the grossest abuse and the darkest superstition; whilst the Hebrew Theocracy had an immediate and ennobling influence upon the citizens, whom it elevated into the rank of priests, and who all enjoyed the same political and religious privileges. It consisted merely in the one elevating idea that God, invisible, omniscient, and eternal, hovered over the people; that the king† was but the first servant of the Lord; and that both the people and the king had to render account for all their deeds before His supreme tribunal. The Hebrew Theocracy was thus also widely different from a hierarchy, or government of priests, who had, constitutionally [i. e. in the Jewish constitution] no political power whatever. The tribe of Levi furnished merely the priests, not the judges and kings, nor even necessarily the prophets; it was

* [See below, chap. xxii.]

The kings, when afterwards appointed, were only the viceroys of Jehovah. This will be considered in its proper place.

not in the exclusive possession of the knowledge of the Law, and could not therefore acquire any dangerous spiritual ascendance it was, on the other hand, the only tribe which obtained no landed property, and it was thus deprived of the chief means of gaining material influence. How different was all this in the Egyptian caste of priests.'

We have already (p. 75) glanced at the fact that the fundamental laws of this Theocratic State were declared in the Ten Commandments, which contain the principles of religious and moral duty; and that, in this instance, civil and moral laws were blended together in one code. But this fact is one of great importance, and deserves special attention.

It is in perfect keeping with the relation of Jehovah to the Israelites as their national Sovereign, that the moral law holds also the place of a civil institute; and indeed these two positions involve each other. But there is sometimes a confusion of thought on this subject; and the reader will do well to attend to the following judicious observations of a recent writer, by which that confusion, with many consequent errors, may be avoided. 'The specific difference between the Mosaic law regarded as a national constitution, and every other that is known to have existed, consists, not in its religious character, taken by itself, nor again in any peculiarity of its civil enactments, remarkable as some of these were, but in the complete fusion which it presented of civil and religious government. The system under which the Jews were placed was a visible, external Theocracy. When God took the people into covenant with Himself, He became their God not only in a religious, but in a national sense; He became not only the object of their worship, but their King. The same Lawgiver framed both the civil and religious code of the nation; the same volume of inspiration which instructed a Jew in his duty towards his Maker, contained also the charter of his national privileges. Moreover, God not only delivered to the nation the law by which it was to be governed, but charged Himself with the administration of that, law; executing its sanctions of reward and punishment by an immediate exercise of almighty power. These sanctions, as expressed in the books of Moses, were exclusively temporal. The religion, therefore, of the pious Jew was not only a religious, but a national, sentiment; it was loyalty as well as religion. To worship other gods besides Jehovah, was not only a sin, but a crime; a crime læse majestatis, or of a treasonable character, and as such visited with death. The ideas expressed

Commentary on Exodus xix. 6.

by the terms sin and crime,* between which human legislators know so well how to distinguish, were, under the Jewish polity, perfectly interchangeable.... In ordinary political legislation, the insertion of the moral law is obviously out of place, and is never attempted; but the Divine Lawgiver of the Jews entertained ulterior purposes, and the national constitution of the Jews was, in this as in other instances, framed in reference, and subordination, to the one great object of preparing the way for the advent of the Saviour.'†

We have already (p. 84) seen that, under the Mosaic code, idolatry was regarded in the light of treason; and, on the same principle, blasphemy, false prophecy, profanation of the Sabbath, and witchcraft were made capital offences; while even disrespect towards elders, judges, and parents was visited with severe punishment, because these superiors were regarded as being, to a certain extent, representatives of God. In fact, as it has been well observed, under the Jewish constitution every law, however unimportant in appearance, assumes the dignity of a precept commanded by the Eternal King, and its transgression is a violation of His sovereignty.

The Mosaic laws between man and man are directly founded on the principle Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,' a principle subordinate only to that of the supreme love of God, from which it flows. Hence the laws for security of property, and especially those for the safety of the person; the Mosaic code treating offences against property with greater clemency than some other codes, but visiting offences against the person with more severity. Hence also the laws against private revenge. (Lev. xix. 18.; see also, concerning strangers, Lev. xix. 34, and concerning enemies, Exod. xxiii. 4, 5.) Death for wilful murder was solemnly enacted (Exod. xxi. 14); but a provision was made for the protection of unintentional homicide by the appointment of six cities of refuge, namely, Kedesh, Shechem, and Hebron on the one side of the Jordan, and Bezer, Ramoth, and Golan on the other. (Josh. xx. 7, 8.) Some one of these cities was within easy reach from any part of the country; the roads leading to them were kept in good repair; and way-marks directed the traveller at every point where he was

It may be well to point out to the younger readers of this History the difference which subsists between the three terms, SIN, CRIME, and VICE. Sin, as such, is an offence against God; crime is an offence against society; vice is a personal fault, an injury of one's self. Now crimes and vices are contrary to the Divine law; and, therefore, although it is not true that every sin is a crime or vice, or that every vice is a crime, or every crime a vice, yet it is true that every crime and every vice is a sin.

† Litton's Bampton Lectures, Lect, i. vi,

*

liable to mistake his road. Many provisions were made against unchastity and impurity; against disobedience to parents or magistrates (Deut. xvii. 12, xxi. 18-21); in favour of the poor (Deut. xv. 7-11, xxiv. 10-13; Lev. xxv. 25-55); for protection of day-labourers (Lev. xix. 13; Deut. xxiv. 14, 15; comp. Matt. xx. 8; Jer. xxii. 13; James v. 4); and in favour of poor gleaners after the harvest in a rich man's field. (Deut. xxiv. 19-21; Lev. xix. 9, 10, xxiii. 22.)

The civil law delivered to Moses, and by him prescribed to the people, was complete; it was adapted to its purpose and to the wants of the people, without alteration or addition, from age to age. Hence amongst the Jews there was no continuous legislation, and therefore no legislative body--no machinery for legislation, for the abrogation of old laws or the making of new ones, as among other people; there was only an executive for the perpetual application of laws once enacted. In this respect the Jewish constitution was unique; and this unlikeness to other institutions, if duly examined, will be found to constitute one mark of its Divine origin.

ELEMENTARY AND GENERAL QUESTIONS.

267. Describe the Jewish Theocracy in general.

268. What was its fundamental law?

269. What principle lay at the root of the Mosaic laws between man and man? 270. Name the cities of refuge.

271. Describe their use; and give some particulars concerning the way of access to them. How do they appear as an emblem of Christ?

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS.

272. Describe, more particularly, the features of the Theocracy.

273. What relation did the Jewish Theocracy bear to the patriarchal, and tribal, constitutions?

274. State some points of difference between the true Theocracy of the Jews, and false heathen theocracies.

275. How did this Theocracy differ from a hierarchy ?

276. Explain the principle on which the moral and civil laws are blended together in the Mosaic code.

277. Point out the difference between sin, crime, and vice.

* Such being the general nature of this institution, and such the several circumstances connected with it, the whole well claims to be regarded as a lively emblem of Christ, the true Refuge of the soul.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE RELATIONS AND OFFICE OF THE MOSAIC RITUAL.-Irs CHARACTER, AS SYMBOLICAL AND TYPICAL.

WE have already seen that, according to the spirit of the Mosaic institutions, the whole course of Jewish life was regarded as subsisting under the provisions of a national covenant; a covenant which had involved a voluntary compact, on the part of the people, with Jehovah as their sovereign and lawgiver; while, on the part of God, this relationship was not only voluntary, but was set forth as an act of free favour, following upon the original act of grace in His choice of Abraham and his posterity as a people peculiarly His own, and upon the wonderful preservation of the Israelites, including a course of miraculous deliverances, by which Jehovah manifested Himself as their Almighty friend and benefactor. On these acts of special favour, combined with a declaration of His authority as the Supreme Being, Creator of heaven and earth, the Lord founded His claims of loving and dutiful obedience on the part of His chosen people, to the honour of His holy name. The Israelites were commissioned to receive the progressive revelation of His will, and to develope the religious life, or a life of intelligent faith and godliness, in contradistinction to the corrupt life of the idolaters by whom they were surrounded, so as to become a good seed, or leaven, among the nations, and eventually to be the means of establishing the kingdom of God throughout the world. They were appointed to be themselves trained up in the knowledge and love of God, to receive perpetually increasing light, and at last to give a spiritual reception and welcome to the Messiah (who should be the seed of Abraham according to the flesh), and to be the instruments of propagating the message and power of the Gospel among all nations.

The Moral Law, as we have seen, penetrates, and is incorporated with, the body of social and civil laws which Moses was commissioned to promulgate; and with these again is mixed up an elaborate system of rites and ceremonies for the regulation of public worship, and of that which may be termed the outward form of the religious life. And it is obvious that one immediate end of the Mosaic ritual was to assist in maintaining the relation of Israel to Jehovah as their covenant God and their national Sovereign, and to develope this relation in its consequences and results. It was also a part of its design to preserve the people from injurious contact with heathen nations, holy to the Lord,