"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, 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, the peculiar situation and privileges of the tribe of Levi, as regulated by the divine appointment, admirably fitted them. Possessed of no landed property, and supported by the tithes and offerings which they received in kind, they were little occupied with labour or secular care deriving their maintenance from a source which would necessarily fail if the worship and the laws of God were neglected, they were deeply interested in their support. Their cities being dispersed through all the tribes and their families permitted to intermarry with all, they were every where at hand to admonish and instruct; exclusively possessed of the high-priesthood, as well as of all other religious offices, and associated with the high-priest and judge in the supreme court of judicature, and with the elders of every city in the inferior tribunals, and guardians of the cities of refuge where those who were guilty of homicide fled for an asylum, they must have acquired such influence and reverence amongst the people, as were necessary to secure attention to their instructions: and they were led to study the rules of moral conduct, the principles of equity, and above all, the Mosaic code, with unceasing attention; but they were not laid under any vows of celibacy, or monastic austerity and retirement, and thus abstracted from the intercourse and the feelings of social life. Thus circumstanced, they were assuredly well calculated to answer the purpose of their institution, to preserve and consolidate the union of all the other tribes, to instruct and forward the Jews in knowledge, virtue and piety; "To teach Jacob the judgments, and Israel the law of Jehovah;" that they might hear and fear, "and learn to obey the will of "their Sovereign and their God." And as no more important * Deut. xxxi. 10-13.. +Numbers xxxv, Deut xvii. 9. and xxvi. S. object could be aimed at by any Lawgiver, so the almost total neglect of other legislators in this respect, and the caution and wisdom of the Jewish institutions for this purpose, seem to supply one important presumptive argument for the divine original of the Mosaic code. Hitherto we have considered the Jewish Law chiefly as it secured the rights and promoted the happiness of the higher and middling classes of society, the nobility and gentry, the Levites and the great mass of the Jewish yeomanry or freemen.* But the Mosaic Law extended its paternal care to the very lowest. classes, the stranger and the slave, the poor, the fatherless and the widow. These it represents as the peculiar objects of the divine care, and denounces against any injury to them peculiar indignation and punishment from God. "If a stranger sojourn "with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him; but the stranger “that dwelleth among you shall be unto you as one born among you and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers “in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord thy God."† "The "tithes of the third year thou shalt give to the Levite, the "stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that they may eat "within thy gates, and be filled."‡ 66 That part of the Hebrew constitution which forbade the acceptance of interest § from a fellow-citizen, and established a septennial abolition of debts, and a periodical restitution of all lands which had been alienated from their original proprietors, though necessary for the general balance and security of the Hebrew Government, might yet have operated to increase in some instances the pressure of poverty, by rendering it more difficult to obtain immediate relief. It is therefore important to observe how anxiously the Legislator guards against any such effect from these regulations. "If there be among you," says the Law, "a poor man, one of thy brethren, within any of thy gates, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou "shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy * Vide the Jewish Letters, Part III. Letter iv. Universal History, B. I. ch. vii. sect. 4. on the Laws relating to the sabbatic and jubilee years, p. 613 and 617. + Lev. xix. 33, 34. Deut. xxvi. 12. Interest from any one not a fellow-citizen, was permitted, but subject to the limitation of using him with the strictest regard to equity and benevolence, which the passages quoted in the last paragraph require. 66 66 poor brother. Nor let there be a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release is at hand; and "thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest "him nought, and he cry unto the Lord against thee, and it be "sin unto thee. Thou shalt surely give, and thine heart shall "not be grieved when thou givest unto him; because that for "this thing the Lord thy God will bless thee in all that thou puttest thine hand unto. For the poor shall never cease out "of thy land; therefore, I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide to thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy "needy in thy land."* 66 66 With equal energy does the Law maintain the cause of the hired labourer: "Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that "is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy "strangers that are in thy land within thy gates. At his day "thou shalt give him his hire; neither shall the sun go down "upon it for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it, lest he cry unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee."† 66 + + Thus, also, how are the feelings, as well as the wants of the poor consulted, in that precept which directed, "When thou "dost lend thy brother any thing, thou shalt not go into his "house to fetch his pledge:" as if the Legislator said, Intrude not into his abode, if he is not willing to expose to the stranger's eye the humiliating circumstances of want and nakedness which attend his destitute state; or perhaps there is some little monument of his better days, which he reserves to console his misery, which he would not wish the person from whom he implores aid to see lest he should demand that in pledge, and either, if denied, refuse relief, or, by tearing away this almost sacred relic to which his heart clings, embitter his distress. No, says the Law, the hovel of the poor must be sacred as an holy asylum; the eye of scorn and the foot of pride must not dare to intrude even the agent of mercy must not enter it abruptly and unbid, without consulting the feelings of its wretched inhabitant. "Thou shalt not go into his house to fetch his pledge; "thou shalt stand abroad, and the man to whom thou dost lend “shall bring out the pledge unto thee.”§ In the same strain of humanity the Law goes on: "If the Deut. xv. 7—11. Ib. xxiv. 14 and 15. § Ib. ver. 11. 66 "man be poor, thou shalt not sleep with his pledge. In any case thou shalt deliver him the pledge again when the sun "goeth down, that he may sleep in his own raiment, and bless “thee: and it shall be righteousness unto thee before the Lord thy God."* The same spirit of benevolence was to regulate the conduct and soften the heart of the husbandman in all his labours. " If "thou cuttest down the harvest of thy field," says the Law, "and hast forgot a sheaf, thou shalt not turn again to fetch it: "if thou beatest thine olive-tree, thou shalt not go over the boughs again: when thou gatherest thy grapes, thou shalt not glean it afterward: it shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, "and the widow, that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all "the work of thy hands."+ With equal solicitude does the Law impress reverence for the authority, and attention to the wants of the aged, delivering as the direct command of Jehovah :"Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face "of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the Lord." How much praise have the Spartan institutions justly obtained for cherishing this principle; yet, how much more energetic and authoritative is the language of the Jewish Lawgiver. With a similar spirit the same Lawgiver inculcates in the strongest manner the duty of showing tenderness to those who labour under any bodily infirmity: "Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling-block before the blind, but shalt fear thy God: I am the Lord." And with a still more exalted sense of the importance of virtue above every external advantage and the proportionable obligation of promoting it in all with whom we have any intercourse, the inspired Lawgiver considers the neglecting to do so as a proof of criminal malignity: "Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour and not suffer sin upon him. Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but "thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord.”|| How admirably are such language and such sentiments as these suited to the sacred original from whence they are supposed to flow! How strongly do they attest the divine benevolence, 66 66 66 * Deut. xii. 12 and 13. Levit. xix. 32. Deut. xxiv. 19-21. || Levit. xix. 17 and 18. which dictated the Jewish law, and the divine authority which alone could enforce such precepts by adequate sanctions, and impress such sentiments upon the human heart with practical conviction! If the intermixture of such sentiments and precepts with the civil code, and the union of political regulations with moral instruction and religious observances, is unparalleled in any other country, and by any other Lawgiver does not this circumstance afford some presumptive evidence of the divine original of the Mosaic code. TO REVIEW THE SKETCH WE HAVE EXHIBITED OF THE JEWISH CONSTITUTION, We have seen that it provided for the settlement of 600,000 freeholders, with independent properties, derived not from any human superior, but held in fee from the Sovereign of the Jewish state, even God himself. This distribution of property was guarded by preventing the accumulation of debt, and, if alienated for a time, securing its reversion to the family of the original proprietor at regular periods. The distribution of this body of freeholders through the land, by their tribes and families, forms an additional provision for their union and happiness. They are employed in agriculture, attached to domestic life, estranged from war, but bound to assemble for their country's defence, and thus forming a secure barrier against hostile violence or insidious ambition. They are governed by a nobility, by magistrates and by elders, possessing properties suited to their several ranks, respected for their patriarchal descent, uniting in their persons civil and military authority, by an hereditary right which precluded jealousy and discord. The whole tribe of Levi is set apart to attend to the religious and moral instruction of the nation, for which they have the fullest leisure, and to which they are bound by the strongest interests; dispersed over the whole, and forming a cement and bond of union between the remaining tribes. In this domestic and family government, as it has been justly termed, population is encouraged, freedom secured-agriculture and residence in the country, and, by con sequence, purity and simplicity of manners provided for-domestic virtue, reverence to the aged, kindness to the stranger, bounty to the fatherless and the widow, justice to all, are inculcated in the most forcible manner, and with the most awful sanctions, even the favour or the displeasure of the Lord Jehovah, who is the immediate Sovereign under whom this government |