they commit injury, and when they suffer it. Every just law is dictated by reason and benevolence. Of the authority to command and the obligation to obedience, the foundation, or principle, is the happiness of those to whom the rule is directed. "Salus populi suprema lex." None will doubt that the goodness of all laws depends upon their intrinsic rectitude and benevolent influence.

“The hand of time has been passing over the mighty fabric of human laws for four thousand years;" and yet little has been added to the stock of legal science, and little change has been made in the most improved principles of human jurisprudence since the days of Moses. As might have been justly supposed, there have been great improvements in commercial law, because the Hebrews were an agricultural, and not extensively a commercial people. And there have been improvements in international law, because the Hebrews were, by divine command, separated from other nations. Laws also have been changed by the condition of the countries for which they have been enacted; they have been extended in their specifications; they have been modified by the character, customs, religion, soil, position, and pursuits of different nations; but the fundamental principles, the great outline of legislative science, is found in the civil polity of the Jews. The last four books of the Pentateuch contain the foundations of all wise legislation.

We have in the first instance the Moral Law,

comprised within the short compass of ten commandments. This law contains the nucleus, the germ of all moral obligation, enforcing the claims of the one only living and true God, as the autocrat of the Hebrew nation, and at the same time presenting a comprehensive statement of the duties which man owes to his fellow man. It was given, not through the intermediate ministry of their legislator, but directly to the assembled nation; not by the voice of angels, but by the voice of the Almighty lawgiver. It was stamped as his own, and he imparted to it a sacredness and authority suited to its high pre-eminence.

"Concerning thy testimonies," says the Psalmist, "I have known that thou hast founded them for ever. I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right." The moral law is built upon firm and immutable foundations. It was not im posed by arbitrary will, but corresponds to truth, to the nature of intelligent beings, and the relations they sustain toward God and one another. It is adapted to all times, and places, and intelligences; is without change, or abatement; and is alike fitted to earth and to heaven. It requires what human laws may not require,-perfect holiness; and it forbids what man may not forbid,—all sin. It has a province with which no human code may interfere; for it controls the heart.

It may deserve inquiry, Whether the moral law of the ten commandments was merely a moral law for the private government of individuals?

Was it not a law contemplating man as about forming a community; and laying down certain rules, not merely fit for individual conscience, but as also the indispensable requisites of a social state? In this sense, they are not merely rules of conduct as to internal conscience, and which make men responsible to God; but rules of social existence, without which human society cannot continue, and which make men responsible to the State. Do they not embody, both rules of conscience and the great principles of union among men, and constitute the vital basis of social organization? These ten commandments are indeed a wonderful code. So comprehensive a summary of the indispensable principles of a social state, and so wonderful a summary of moral duty, never could have been of human invention. This great moral code deserves to stand at the head of all the Mosaic institutions, and through the people to whom it was originally proclaimed, to address its claims to all the nations of men.

Next to this great moral law, there is what may be called the Civil or Political Laws. They differ from the moral law in several important particulars; but in none more than this, that they do not require absolute perfection, nor forbid all sin. In other and plainer language, they tolerate what is wrong, and what the moral law does not tolerate. They tolerate imperfection at heart; for they do not profess to reach the heart. That is done by another law, and by no mere civil, poli

tical code. They tolerate imperfection in the life; for no system of human legislation, even though God were its author, would ever attempt to secure even a perfectly blameless exteri r. Hence there were usages in the Hebrew nation which were inconsistent with the moral law, and with the general scope and spirit of the divine oracles, which the civil code of the Old Testament did not prohibit to the Hebrew people.

Great complaint has been made against the Old Testament for these connivances; but great injustice has been done to it in this particular. We have said, that every just law is dictated in wisdom. But while it is indispensable to the due administration of justice, that no law should be unjust, it is not indispensable that every just law which may be thought of should be enacted. A civil code may legislate too much, as well as too little. The object of a law should always be attainable, and always of sufficient importance to demand its enactment. It may be to a high degree fit and proper that men, as citizens, should do right in every thing; while it may not be fit and proper, that any system of mere human legislation should require absolute perfection in human conduct. This, as has been before remarked, is the province of a moral, and not a civil code. This is the province of the divine lawgiver, acting as the moral governor of men, and not of human legislation. He must do this, or his law would not be holy, just and good, nor commend itself to the

conscience. He cannot do less, however extensive his empire, and however remote the period of time, or ages of eternity to which his government is extended. The great peculiarity of his moral government is, that it is a perfect government, conniving at no kind or degree of wickedness, and adjusting penalty to crime with that perfect precision and exactness of moral balance, that is in all cases proportioned to the measure of its ill desert. But this is not the work of human legislation, unless men may legislate for God, and with the design of securing a sinless community. This were impracticable and visionary. Even were there such a thing as perfect rectitude among men, it would be impossible for any civil code to draw the line between guilt and innocence by any distinct or definite limitations. Nor could justice ever become so active, vigilant and cautious, as to prevent, or punish every instance of wickedness. The difficulty of a civil law in attempting to reach everything wrong is but half. The still greater difficulty also would be, in enforcing such laws when made. Their minuteness would render them dif ficult to be known; transgressions would be constant, and the whole business of society, would be the discovering, trying, and punishing of offences. Intention too would be the corpus delicti, and this would have to be tried by fallible judges, liable to partiality and corruption, and by means of witnesses perhaps still more liable. I can imagine no state of anarchy or contention equal to that which