too opulent to be bribed, too attached to each other and to their officers to be disunited, any attempt to enslave such a people, or subvert a constitution so guarded, would have been the extremity of madness; and we may safely pronounce, no state ever existed, where the constitution was more stable, and the national liberty more perfectly secure, than amongst the Jews, while they obeyed the statutes ordained by their inspired Legislator.

Nor were these institutions less wisely adapted to secure the state against foreign violence, and at the same time prevent offensive wars and remote conquests, pursuing in this, but by means infinitely more wisely contrived, and permanently effectual, the same objects which Lycurgus afterwards attempted. He in vain prohibited from engaging in offensive wars, a people who were trained to no other business than military exercises, and sought no other distinction than military glory. Far different was the effect of the Jewish Agrarian Law; it provided indeed, a hardy body of 600,000 yeomanry, ever ready to protect their country when assailed;

VOL. II.

assailed; but perpetually employed as they were in agriculture, attached to domestic life, enjoying the society of friends and relatives, by whom they were encircled, all war must have been to them, in the highest degree, wearisome and odious. Religion concurred with their mode of life, to prevent them from being captivated by the false splendour of military glory. On returning from battle, even if victorious, in order to bring them back to more peaceful feelings, after the rage of war, the Law ordered, that they should consider themselves as polluted, by this, perhaps, necessary slaughter, and unworthy of thus appearing in the camp of Jehovah; they were therefore to employ a whole day in purifying themselves, before they were admitted. Besides, their force was entirely infantry, the Law forbidding even their kings to multiply horses in their train; and the ordinance requiring the attendance of all the males three times every year at Jerusalem, proved the intention of their Legislator to confine the nation within the limits of the promised land; and rendered long and distant wars

*Vide Numbers, ch. xix. 13 to 16; xxxi. 19.

and

and conquests impossible, without renouncing that religion which was incorporated with their whole civil polity, the charter by which they held all their property, and enjoyed all their rights.

In the circumstances of the Jewish polity we have hitherto considered, there is some resemblance to the institutions of subsequent Lawgivers, yet how decided is the superiority of the Mosaic code; but in the regulations as to the tribe of Levi, we see an object pursued, which, until Christianity was established, no Lawgiver but the Jewish thought of attending to. Ministers of religion are indeed found in every state: wherever any idol was worshipped, there must have been altars and priests, there generally were soothsayers and diviners; but such men never attempted any thing beyond the immediate performance of religious ceremonies, or employing that influence over the public mind, which their sacred functions gave them, to promote private gain, or, in some instance, political views: religious and moral instruetion to the great mass of the people, they never attempted, and never desired. But the Jewish

C 2

Jewish Legislator set apart the entire tribe of Levi, one-twelfth of the nation, not merely to perform the rites and sacrifices which the ritual enjoined, (a purpose which I do not now particularly insist on,) but to diffuse over the great mass of the people, religious and moral instruction, for which they were expressly set apart. "Of Levi," (says the Legislator, when in his last solemn hymn, he sketches the characters and the fortunes of the different tribes,) * "let thy Urim and thy

Thummim be with thy holy one; they have "observed thy word and kept thy covenant;

they shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and "Israel thy Law; they shall put incense be"fore thee, and whole-burnt sacrifices upon "thine altar." To them was the custody of the sacred volume consigned, with the ark of the covenant; and Moses commanded the priests, the sons of Levi, and the elders of Israel, "At the end of every seven years,

in

* Deut. xxxiii. 9.

+ Deut. xxxi. 10.

Among the various wise reasons for choosing this period, one most principal appears to be, its being the year of release, when the general abolition of debts and discharge from personal slavery periodically took place; cir

cumstances

"in the solemnity of the year of release, in "the feast of tabernacles, when all Israel is

come to appear before the Lord thy God, "in the place which he shall choose, thou "shalt read this Law before all Israel in their "hearing. Gather the people together, men "and women and children, and the stranger "that is within thy gates, that they may

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hear, and that they may learn, and fear "the Lord your God, and observe to do all "the words of this Law; and that their "children which have not known any thing,

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may hear and learn to fear the Lord your "God, as long as you live in the land, "whither ye go to possess it." This public and solemn periodical instruction, though eminently useful, was certainly not the entire of their duty; they were bound, from the spirit of this ordinance, to take care, that at all times, the aged should be improved, and the children instructed in the knowledge and the fear of God, the adoration of his majesty, and the observance of his Law: and, for this

purpose,

cumstances which would necessarily secure constant attention to this solemnity, and contribute to insure the observance of this command. Thus closely were the religious and civil parts of the Mosaic code connected.