would be produced by civil laws attempting to enforce all that is right, and to prohibit all that is wrong. The basis of all legislation by general rules admits of partial evil for general good; and this is the only practicable legislation. Moses, for example, allowed polygamy, because, in that age of the world it was not once thought of as a sin; and the time had not come for him to sunder the ten thousand bonds which existed all over the nation between husbands and wives, parents and children, and suddenly break up the foundations of long established society by enforcing the original law of marriage. And for the same reason he allowed of divorce for other causes than conjugal infidelity, and also because in a state of society where polygamy is allowed, one of the means of gradually preventing polygamy was not to render divorces too difficult.

It is essential to a moral law, as we have before intimated, that it tolerate nothing that is wrong, however strong the reasons for the connivance; while it is essential to the wisdom of every code of civil legislation, that it connive at many things, lest by aiming at too much it defeat its own designs. Take a plain and familiar example. What course would a wise man pursue, if he were to form a Civil Code for the Sandwich Islands, or for the colonies on the coast of Africa? God has already proclaimed to them his moral law, requiring perfect holiness. This law the faithful missionary of the cross illustrates and enforces

in all the perfection of its precepts, and all the severity of its sanctions. But as a virtuous and wise jurist, he is called upon to modify and change their civil code, by which they shall regulate their mutual intercourse, define rights and tresspass, and crimes; try criminals, and determine civil actions. It would be puerile to suppose that he would prescribe to them the ten commandments, or which would amount to the same thing, that he would expressly prohibit by penal sanctions everything which is not accordant to the perfect demands of the moral law. He would obviously inquire, to what extent it is practicable, expedient, and conducive to the ends of good government to require all that is right, and forbid all that is wrong. While the code which he would establish would enjoin nothing that is sinful, under a sound discretion he would ask, to what extent it might tolerate and suffer some evils, lest it should defeat its own design. Nay, would he not even establish laws to regulate those very evils; to prevent the increase and abuse of them, that ultimately and in a more improved and advanced state of society, they might be wholly eradicated? Now this is what infinite wisdom has done in the civil code of the Hebrews. The moral law he had given them. But that recently enslaved people were about to assume a new character. They were about to be organized into a body politic and to be constituted the Hebrew state. And in this crisis of their history, God himself was their counsellor. He

condescended to give them statutes and judg ments, and to become the author and framer of their civil and judicial code. And would you deny to him the discretion of a wise jurist? Is it to be supposed that he would conduct so weighty a concern with any lack of wisdom, or any want of regard for the condition and character of the people for whom he was about to legislate? John Locke could write with distinguished ability on the powers of the human mind; but when he comes to discuss the great practical questions of civil government, and to prepare a constitution for a free state, he is like Samson shorn of his strength. The divine wisdom was never more needed by the Hebrew nation than at the commencement of their political existence, just after they had escaped the servitude of Egypt. Cavillers at the political law of the Hebrews, seem to have lost sight of the very obvious distinction between their moral and civil code; while a very slight attention to the Scriptures, and to the nature of the case evinces that they were delivered at different times, to different persons, and for widely different purposes. The object of their civil laws is to define and illustrate the doctrine of personal rights; to govern their intercourse in the common transactions of human life; to extend their influence into the domestic circle, and regulate the reciprocal duties of husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant. And most abundantly do they indicate their divine Author.

*

We cannot do justice to this part of our subject without entering briefly into some specifications. The caution with which the Mosaic law prevented the accumulation of debt,-the fidelity with which they required the restoration of lost property,the restoring of property that was injured, or stolen, in the former case to the full amount of its original value, and in the latter to double that amount, and the distinctness and simplicity of the law of bailment, are replete with instruction to every succeeding generation of men. Any man who carefully reads that beautiful treatise of Sir William Jones on this last subject, will see that all the leading principles of the law of bailment there illustrated, are found in the law of Moses.* In the Mosaic code you find the following law in relation to injuries arising from care lessness and inattention. "If a man shall open a pit, or if a man shall dig a pit, and not cover it, and an ox, or an ass fall therein, the owner of the pit shall make it good, and give money unto the owner of them; and the dead beast shall be his. And if one man's ox hurt another's that he die; then they shall sell the live ox, and divide the money of it; and the dead ox also they shall divide." This law contains the germ of all the existing refinements of the law of injuries from want of care, and those arising without fault. There is a nice equity in this law, where, upon payment for

* Exod. 22. 14, 15.

the damages, "the beast shall be his" who was the occasion of the injury. The division of the loss, too, where neither party is in fault, is a very refined notion of equity. It is the rule at the present day, in the case of the collision of ships; and is both more equitable and more tender than leaving the loss upon that party who, by accident, first sustains it. Dividing the loss also greatly diminished the temptation to quarrel about the probable fault, and to prevent a litigation; and this is a cardinal object of all wise governments.* The doctrine of restitution in the cases of theft, of the difference in the degree of restitution between the selling and killing the stolen ox, or sheep, and its being found in the thief's hand, was both most just and most politic. As the article could be re stored, there was no fear of the thief's gaining by a difference of value between the sold or killed ox, and those to be restored.† The law of mandatories, or the law concerning property given in charge for safe keeping, is not to be surpassed for wisdom and equity; and all the refinements of the law to this day, do not carry the principle any further. No rule of damages in cases of seduction is so wise as that in the law of Moses. It is the usual one lawyers now present to juries, where the case is one of real deception.

These, and

Exodus 21. 33-35. †Ib. 22. 1-4. Ib. 16. 17.

Ib. 7—15.