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SECT. IV.

Peculiar Sanctions of the Mosaic Law.

Ir is not only by such a consideration of the object of the Hebrew polity, as was entered upon in the preceding Section, that we may derive an irresistible argument for its divine institution: but the peculiarity of its provisional sanctions, and the deviation from the ordinary course of nature on which they confidently rely, must bring us to the same conclusion. I take it as an acknowledged principle, that every lawgiver consults for the observance of his statutes, by such penal enactments as he has within his power; and would be more anxious to establish a belief of the certainty, than even of the severity, of his punishments. For this reason it was that the terrors of future judgment were called in, as we have seen, to assist the inadequacy of human justice, by some of the ancient lawgivers; and to assure offenders that the vengeance, which must necessarily prove often tardy and uncertain on

this side the grave, will be sure and swift on the other.

Moses, however, relies on this venge ance as immediate; and employs the sanction of a retributive providence as confidently, as if he held the lightning in his own hands, and wielded the government of the world. All his enactments imply that sort of dependence on divine interposition, which gould not be derived from any experience of the usual course of events. Obedience to the commandments is not only enjoined as a positive duty, but as the sure source of all prosperity, both national and individual. "And it shall come "to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently "unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to "observe and to do all his command"ments which I command thee this day, "that the Lord thy God will set thee high "above all nations of the earth. The Lord "shall cause thine enemies that rise up "against thee to be smitten before thy "face; they shall come out against thee

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one way, and flee before thee seven 66 ways. The Lord shall command a blessthee in thy storehouses, and in all

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ing upon

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"that thou settest thine hand unto; and all

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people of the earth shall see that thou art "called by the name of the Lord, and they "shall be afraid of thee*." On the other hand, disobedience, and particularly in the matter of idolatry, is threatened with the severest chastisements that can befal a nation; with private distress, and public calamity; with the annihilation of the government, and the captivity of the people. "See, I have set before thee this day life " and good, and death and evil; in that I "command thee this day to love the Lord

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thy God, to walk in his ways, and to

keep his commandments and his statutes "and his judgments, &c. But if thine heart "turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, "but shalt be drawn away, and worship "other gods, and serve them; I denounce " unto you this day, that ye shall surely pe"rish, and that ye shall not prolong your

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days upon the land, whither thou passest

over Jordán to go to possess it. The "Lord shall scatter thee among all people, "from the one end of the earth even unto "the other; and among these nations

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* Deut. xxviii.

"shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the "sole of thy foot have rest *."

Thus the duration of the whole civil polity is made dependent on the adherence of the people, not to the established form of government by magistrates and elders, but to the established worship: and its dissolution is represented as consequent, not on a violation of the political ordinances, or moral code, so much as on a departure from that allegiance which was due to God, as the author of the whole, and on a dereliction of the worship which he had appointed as suited to the immateriality of his essence, and as calculated at the same time to inspire an habitual conviction of his superintending power.

Again, the case is supposed of the crime of disobedience, and of the infliction of the consequent penalty, defeat and captivity : and it is positively declared, that repentance and an acknowledgment of the Creator, and a return to his worship, shall be rewarded by his forgiveness of their trans

* Deut. xxx. 15.

gressions, and the re-establishment of their temporal power. "And it shall come to

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pass, when all these things are come upon "thee, the blessing and the curse which I "have set before thee, and thou shalt call "them to mind among all the nations whi"ther the Lord thy God hath driven thee; "and shalt return unto the Lord thy God, "and shalt obey his voice according to all "that I command thee here this day, thou " and thy children, with all thine heart and "with all thy soul; that then the Lord thy "God will turn thy captivity, and have

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compassion upon thee, and will return " and gather thee from all the nations whi"ther the Lord thy God hath scattered

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thee; and thou shalt return and obey "the voice of the Lord, and do all his 66 commandments which I command thee "this day*."

Throughout this, there is a total defiance of the ordinary process of human affairs. I do not allege it as remarkable, that the lawgiver should represent the observance of his laws as essential to the in

* Deut. xxx. 1-8.