ill! ^ / I^EOLCGICAL eiMl^:AKY.| . princetcD, r:. J. 1 \ ^.-^-.--i BR 115 .P7 G58 v.l Goodell, William. The democracy of ^ , Christianity, or ' THE DEMOCMCY or CHRISTIANITY, OR AN ANALYSIS OF THE BIBLE AND ITS DOCTRINES IN THEIR RELATION TO THE PRINCIPLE OF DEMOCRACY. VOL. I. BY A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES. NEW YORK : CADY & BURGESS, 60 JOHN STREET. 1849. Entered according to act of Congress in tlieyear ©four Lord 1 849, BY CADY & BURGESS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. Day standing and admitted facts of the case are sufficient for all the purposes of the present treatise. Some say, " all mankind, descending from Adam by ordinary generation, sin- ned in him and fell with him in his first transgression," and thus *'the fall of our first parents brought all mankind into a state of sin and misery." Others who can not understandingly admit this statement nor see that it is contained in the Bible, conceive nevertheless that a corrupt nature ^vas transmitted from Adam to his posterit3\ This view^, at one time nearly exploded in some sects that had held it, has lately been revived in substance by certain writers on physiology, who teach on what are claim- ed to be scientific principles, the hereditary propagation of moral as well as physical propensities and qualities on the analogy of he animal and vegetable kingdoms that "like produces like." There are others in distinction from the preceding, who hold that according to a divine constitution and independently of phy- sical causes, God suspended the moral character of the human family upon the moral conduct of Adam. Others insist wi*h Pe- lagius, that all the corruption of the species arises from their following the example of Adam, and coming under the cor- rupt moral influences that have been transmitted from age to age ever since. On either of these theories the fact remains that sin entered the world by Adam, and in consequence of that event all men have sinned. Without committing ourselves to either one of these theories. 22 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. in the precise forms above stated, and confessing that the whole subject, is involved in the obscurity of its profound depth as compared with our limited knowledge, we have only to open our eyes on the world around us and consult the page of universal history to find all the facts we have occasion for in this argument (perhaps in any practical inquiry) and in a shape that bids defi- ance to contradiction. Man, everywhere and in all ages, is a riddle — a mystery, the study of which, though it increases our knowledge, does not exhaust the subject. All exact and cona- prehensive observers — all earnest and deep thinkers have been struck with the monstrous and anomalous character of man. His dignity and his degradation, his greatness and his littleness, his majesty and his meaness have excited admiration and disgust, veneration and pity. His noble nature, as it is still seen to be, though obscured and in ruins, like the monuments of ancient ar- chitecture, in fragments and in the dust, reveals to us a glimpse of what it must once have been, when man first came from the forming hand of his Maker. His noble nature as contrasted with his abject character and condition, his high aspirations, his groveUing desires, his thirst for immortality, his speedy dis- solution, his far-reaching capacities, and the perverted use he copamonly makes of them, his affinity to higher orders of beings, his voluntary prostration below the beasts that perish — all these and the like of them — no mere dogmas of the schools, but facts known and read of all men — carry our thoughts back to some point of human history in which a sad and solemn catastrophe must have taken place, in which man fell from his first estate into the lamentable condition in which the earliest profane histories find him, and which he has mainly occupied ever since. The Bible contains the only clear and authentic history that has come down to us of this wonderful event. Here the pro- found mystery is in a measure solved, the leading facts of the case are set before us, and the general bearing of them disclo- sed : " In Adam all die." " By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Hotv this wns done, we leave the UEMOCRACr OP CHRISTTAKITY. 23 schools to contest. The Christian records tell us it was done ; and the past and present condition of the race bear witness to the congruity of the statement. Here then is another link in the chain of the historic re- cords, Ihe foundation facts of the Christian revelation, that binds together the entire species. That record attests, not only the common origin and parentage of the race, and the common share of each member of the family in the honor and the dis- honor of that parentage ; it goes farther and presents to us in the fall of our first parents, the prospective character, condition, and destiny of the species. It gives us to understand that in an important sense and bearing that transaction was a social, a family transaction, by which the entire race were to be affected, in all their generations, to the end of time, in all that pertains to their most vital and important interests. On this fact it bases that entire scheme of remedial processes and influences through successive administrations and dispensations and reach- ing forward to the advent and consummated work of the Mes- siah, the Savior of men, which it is the business of the sacred writers, one after another and in due chronological order, to un- fold. Whatever the Christian scheme of redemption propo- ses or proffers, is devised and designed for the entire family of man ; and on the ground that each branch and member of the family is part and parcel of one and the same lapsed and lost race, in need of a " second Adam " to restore them from the ruin occasioned by the "first." This identity, this unity, this com- mon character and condition, this common treatment, disci- pline, probation, and moral culture of the race in consequence of their common defection, is so marked a feature of the Chris- tian revelation, considered as a historical record of God's pro- gressive dealings towards them, from the era of Adam to that of Noah, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Jesus Christ, that if you reject the idea of a common brotherhood of the children of Adam, and their common par- ticipancy in the moral defection commenced by him, you dis- credit the whole record, and reject the entire system of reli- gion proposed in the Seiiiptures. •24 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITT. This sad and guilty brotherhood in sin and sorrow, admit- ting of no exception, from the despot on his throne to the cap- tive in his dungeon, that includes the rich man in his palace' and the beggar on the dunghill, the wise man and the fpol, the saint and the reprobate, that transforms this otherAvise beautiful and glorious Avorld into a vale of. tears, an aceldema of blood, a charnel house of death — whatever else it may certify or be- token, tells us, at least, though in tones of lamentation, this one great truth, that humanity is^ one and indivisible, that the blood of a common ancestry runs in all human veins, that the charac- teristics of a common human nature, marred, broken, disjointed as it may be— as it must have been— as the Bible tells us it was, are everywhere visible ; nay, more, that in the main, a com- mon moral character, common dispositions, common propensi- ties, common susceptibilities to temptation, common lusts, com- mon vices, reign, or have reigned, with incidental variations, throughout the whole family, and mark the members as es- sentially one, that " as face answereth to face in water, so the heart of man to man," insomuch that the knowledge of man in one age or nation is the knowledge of him in all ao-es and ev- erywhere, the knowledge of ourselves is the knowledo-e of our neighbor, the mote in the eye of a brother certifies some similar beam in our own, the psychological analysis of one mind an- swers for all minds, and the remedy provided by infinite .vis- dom for the salvation of the worst of the species is needed also lor the best, for "they are all under sin." Christianity, in teaching us this, as she does in the simple story of the fall of man and its results, teaches one of her most unwelcome and humiliating lessons ; but in doing it, she teaches ^hat we most need to know, to feel, and to incorporate into ev- ery fibre and texture of our moral existence, in order either to our taking our proper position towards our Supreme Lawo-iv- er and Savior and proffered ^mcii^ev, ox towards our equal JeUow men^ The man who would not behave arrogantly among h,s fellows, saying in his heart, '' Stand aside, for I am hoher thmi thou"-who would not take a position of elevation above his brethren that does not become him. in other words, DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 25 who would honor the idea of human equality, in all the rela- tions of life, as he should do, must study profoundly the records and diink deeply into the spirit of the Christian religion, in its revelation of the common and universal pollution of the species, himself not excepted. Not to do this, is to expose one's self to the danger of imbibing the aristocratic spirit in one of its most hateful but insidious phases. Not to learn this lesson is to deprive ourselves of one of the most powerful of ^ all weapons in assaihng the fortresses of spiritual wickedness, pride, and despotism in high places. When the oppressors of their fellow men attempt to frame apologies for their injustice and ar- rogance bv bringing the charges of vice, ignorance, and degra- dation against their victims, they sh .uld be made to feel that the charges, however true they may be, lie also against them- selves. Thev should be shown ihat the vices and degradation of those whom they thus despise, so far from proving their " inferiority " are only the sad badges of their " equahty"— that instead of indicating their classification with some "lower" order of beings than the race of Adam, those characteristics are only their unimpeachable credentials of that affinity and of their common brotherhood with their oppressors. The most wronged and imbruted portion of the human family are thus truthfully and eloquently vindicated by one of our Christian poets.* " Is he not wan, though Knowlecljie never shed j Her quickeui..^ bi-ain^s on his negiecttd head ? . Is he not 77ian, ihough sx^oet liehji.oti's voice IS e'er bade liio inoun.er m his God r.j ..ce i U he nut man, by sm and sullenng tried ! Is he not man, for whom the fe.v.or di. d i\ B-lie ihe .Nejrro-s power- in 'y ='•'»"§ ;^.;;~,, , Lhrir^tiau ! ihy brother ai-u siiuU p-ove him slill ;, Belie hi.-, virtues ; .-^ince Ids wr..h^.- be^'^"' ,„ Bis tollits and his crimes have sltf.ni.id him M B rs . The well-instructed and thoroughly experienced Christian understands and feels himself to be nothing better than a sinner redeemed, a brand plucked from the burning, who while admon- ishino- others must needs wrestle and agonize to keep his body * Ja.no, Montgomery . in his poem-" The West Indies." 26 DEMOORACY OPQHRISTIANITr. under, lest he himself should become a cast-away. Can it be befitting such an one to play the hierarch or the autocrat— to crowd his fellow- worms and fellow-sinners off from the platfomr of our common probationary humanity where Infinite Wisdom and Almighty Love and forbearance have placed them for the exercise of their powers, for the forming of their characters— to do this on the plea of their vices, their ignorance, and their degradation ? But we must not prematurely anticipate a train of reflections which were better reserved for' a more advanced stage of our argument and in companionship with other important considerations. 3. The fall of man considered in still another aspect holds forth to us the lesson of democracy in another form. The fall of Adam— the fall of man— in what did it consist— what was it but a transgression of law? The law of equal and impartial love, justice, equity? And what is equity but equalitv, and what are justice and love^but manifestations of these ? Rather, what are equity and justice but manifestations and forms of im- partial and disinterested Love ? Here, again, we need not anticipate further, another branch of our argument. It may be sufficient now to say, that the fall of man, while the fact and its results exhibit proofs of the original and essential unity of the species, was in itself, (and in its known results it involved, as it could not but do,) a fla- grant violation of the laia of an universal and common brother- hood, for that law is Love. In rebelling against his Maker, man made war upon humanity, the child of God, did violence to himself, and laid the foundation of estrangement and hostility between man and man. As he that loves not his brother loves not the father that begat him, so that he that loves not God loves not his brother who was begotten of him. God him- self is ihQ Great Head and Father of the human family, and an estrangement from Him involved, of course, an estrangement of the equal brethren of the family from each other. So the Bible teaches us, and so its recorded facts testif)\ Among the first fruits of the fall were the most appalling violations of equal brotherhood and inalienable human rights. Even the right to DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 27 life was disregarded by the first born of the lapsed race. " Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and slew him." "And where- fore slew he him ? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous." The element of unrighteousness having been introduced into human society, human brotherhood was violated. and its inalienable rights outraged, of course. In other words, the fall of man, the sin, the transgression of law, the moral corruption of the race, (the depravity of man, if we use that term) of which the Bible and the Christian theology so much treat, involves and includes the violation of those principles of equality, common human brothei'hood, and inalienable rights*- Avhich he at the basis of everything that can be called democra- tic, whether in theory or in practice. Had man never fallen from his original integrity, had man never sinned, there never could have been any violation of those principles. They would always have been held inviolably sacred, and would have con- trolled all the arrangements and activities of men. And what is this but saying that those principles are in accordance with the mind and will of God, that they are emenations from Him, that they are stamped with His authority, that they live and manifest themselves in His law, that they are comprised in the rule or model upon which our common humanity, as it came from His forming hand, was originally constructed ? That the viola- tion of these principles is rebellion against God ? What higher sanction conld Christianity give to democracy than this? The inspired record informs us that the Satanic temptation that took effect with our first parents, was the supposed prospect of becoming gods, of rising above the level of that human na- ture in which it was their privilege and glory to participate. The fall was simultaneous with the entrance of ambition and pride, the very essence of every thing that is anti- democratic, from age to age. The grand motive-spring of every autocratic aspiration and aristocratic arrangement has always been this same desire to become gods, and rise above the common level of humanity where the Creator has placed each one of us. Such arrange- ments and aspirations wherever witnessed are the standing and 28 DEMOCRACY OF OHRISTlANITy. sufficient monimients of the fall of man, and of the authenticity and accuracy of the Bible account of it. CHAPTER III. • THE ANTEDELUVIANS AND THE DELUGE. Of " the world before the flood "we know nothing except ■ from the Scriptures. The brevity of the record may assure us that the facts noted were deemed of special importance. If those facts shall furnish any information on the topic of our inquiry, we may infer that the record may have been given Avith a reference among other things to that end. Or if the informa- tion were purely incidental, it could not be the less valuable on that account: " And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man from the face of the earth." * * * " But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." * * * Noah was a just man, and perfect in liis generations, and Noah walked with God." * * * The earth also was corrupt before God; and the earth was Ailed with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and behold it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, the end of all tlesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them, and behold 1 will destroy them with the earth." "^ This period of the world, so remarkable for its universal and extreme wickedness, was equally remarkable it seems for its uni- versal and extreme contempt and reckless invasion of inalienable human rights. The latter is put down in the Sacred record as a particular and appropriate specification, to prove and illus- trate the general allegation of the former. nFMOCRAOY OF rURISTIANITV'. 2P This specification is made emphatic by its repetition, in whicli tliat particular form of -wickedness is singled out and declared to constitute the specific ground or reason of the divine determination to cut off the inhabitants of the earth, re- serving only the famil}- of one who could be characterised as a "just man," one who regarded the equal rights of his neighbor. No doubt Noah was a man of prayer and had been in the habit of offering sacrifices as Abel before him had done, and as he is recorded to have done after the flood ; and elsewhere we read of his having been a " preacher of righteousness." But by neither of these was he minutely characterised when the reason was to be given why on this occasion he " found grace in the sight of the Lord." He is simply described as " a just man," perfect in his generations, and walking with Godt He was distinguished as a man of equity, who regarded the rights of his equal brethren, a man of integrity in tlie generation to which he belonged ; doing justice and walking humbly with God. Whether the mass of the community around him offered sacrifices and prayers we are not told. They may have been as zealous in this direction as were the Hebrews in the time of Isaiah, and whose "vain oblations" and prayers Jehovah spurned. Or they may have been bold blasphemers and scoffers who denied the existence of a God. More probably the two classes were commingled, and worshippers of graven images may have added to their company. We know not. It matters not. Divine wisdom has not thought it necessary, by the addition of a sin- gle sentence or clause of a sentence to infoi-m us. That knowl- edge God could afford to withhold, while taking care to tell us by significant repetitions that the world thus " filled " with vio- lations of common brotherhood and equal rights could no longer be tolerated in his presence, but must be overwhelmed and purged by a general deluge. Let us not be misunderstood. We do not say that oppression or violence Avas the only sin for which the antedeluvian world was destroyed. We merely say it Avas the prominent sin by which the measure of its iniquities was filled and its doom seal- 30 DEMOCRACY OF OHRISTIANITT. ed. The record attests this, and in doing so bears testimony to the sacredness and inviolabihty, in God's sight, of inahenable human rights. In other language, the foundation principle that a^ firms the equal rights of all men was practically banished from the Old World, and for that particular form of human wickedness the old world was drowned. Blot out or evade the record who can ! AN OBJECTION AND THE ANSWER. It may excite the surprise of some that the claims of the democratic principle should be thus urged in this connexion. They have known the personal rights of men, as they are call- ed, protected under forms of government widel}?- differing from the democratic. They have known the most flagrant viola- tions of those rights to be perpetrated and sheltered under governments called democracies, and shaped to a great extent iq accordance with democi-atic maxims. They have found among the administrators and advocates of monar- archical and aristocratic institutions the champions of the oppressed, whose philanthropic efforts have procured for them a world wide and enduring fame ; Avhile (to use the words of the aristocratic Dr. Johnson) '•' the loudest yelps for liberty and democratic equality come from those who hold slaves." And hence they think it wrong to claim for democra- cy the exclusive guardianship of human rights ; nor can they feel the force of the argument that deduces a divine vindication of democracy from the overthrow of the lawless oppressors and depredators of the old world, by the flood. We state this objection thus early in our discussion, that its pertinancy may be examined and understood. If the objection be vaUd against this item of our aigument, it will be equally valid against others that we propose to introduce ; and we may as well meet it here, once for all. It is witli the 'principles of democracy (as well as of Chris- tianity) find with the obvious demands of those principles that we have to do in this discussion, not with the inconsistencies, whether happy or unhappy, of erring and inconsistent men, and of the mixed, heterogeneous, an(J oft-times misnamed and ab- ortive institutions they have patched up and administered. DEMOORAOi' OF OHRIRTIANITY. 31 There are so called democracies that in many respects are most outrageously and notoriously anti-democratic, just as there are so called Christian institutions embracing many things obviously anti-christian. We are reasoning about things, not mere names. From few aristocracies, or monarchies, or even despotisms, has the democratic principle been wholly excluded ; nor is it easy to see how it could be, unless human nature were excluded likewise. Wherever man is, the fact of his exist- ence has to be in some form recognized ; and the same statute- book that stamps him a " chattel " is forced for certain purposes to recognize him as a "person." Wherever any of the riglits of man are recognized, there the foundation principle of democracy to the same extent is recog- nized. Let the government, however despotic, that protects any one of the essential rights of humanity, only proceed to carry out that same principle, in every direction, in all the de- tails of the government — its structure and its administration — and the government becomes democratic of necessity, and ceases to be any thing else. So on the other hand, the de- mocracy, however free in its general features, that permits or perpetrates any one form of oppression or injustice, has only to carry out that same principle of oppression or injustice — as it will be likely to do — first in one direction and then in an- other, and it loses at last its democratic character altoQ-ether and becomes a despotism. We need not look far for illustrations of this truth. If there are oppressors who clamor for liberty and democracy, the world, and especially the opponents of democracy, are for- ward to see their inconsistency, and point the finger of scorn at them, as did Dr. Johnson. Just so the enemies of Chris- tianity are ready to detect and expose as inconsistencies the vices of its professors. In both cases, and equally, the intend- ed shaft becomes a commendation of the system assailed. If Christianity were not pure, its opponents would not deride the inconsistency of its impure professors. And if democracy were not the known antagonist of oppression and exponent of inalienable human rights, the sneering paragraphs levelled 32 DEMOORAOY OF CIIRISTrANITV. against democratic oppression would never have been pen- ned. As to those autocrats -who in certain directions or to a given extent have been protectors, or those administrators or advo- cates of aristocratic arrangements who have won garlands of fame for their philanthropy, and for their espousing in certain instances or directions the cause of the oppressed, let them reap all the honors or rewards that belong to them. Two things however in respect to them let us understand, and thus avoid being misled. So far as they have protected men's rights, or urged the claims of humanity, or pleaded the cause of the oppressed, so far they have bowed down to the funda- mental principle of democracy and done it homage — the prin- ciple of equal human brotherhood and inalienable rights; and just so far as they have played the autocrat, or administered or advocated the arrangements of aristocracy, just so far they have violated the principles of philanthropy and equity, which in other particulars they had honored, have become oppressors themselves, as inconsistent as those who advocate the principles of democracy while they trample their fellows in the dust. A Doctor Johnson upholding with successive strokes of his strong pen those despotic and unequal arrangements under which his own country and their dependencies, even then, were ground down to the dust — and under which they continue still to be overborne — and yet taunting the democratic holders of slaves, was unconsciously drawing his own portrait when he drew theirs. And even a Wilberforce supporting constantly by his vote in the British parliament the intolerably oppressive ad- ministration of Pitt, was but placing himself in sad contrast with the Wilberforce who in the same parliament urged for- ward the interdiction of the African slave-trade, well-intended to be sure, though abortive. So far as either Johnson or Wilberforce acted against shive- ry, they acted on the principles of democracy and of Christian- ity, and acted right. So far as they acted in support of the oppressive administration of the government of their own country, so ftir they acted against both democracy and Chris- UtMOCJKAOl OF OUKISTJAMTV. '63 tianity, and acted wrong. Had Wilberforce applied to slavery itself in the British West Indies and to the home oppressions of the British government, the same principles of democracy and of Christianity that he applied only to the African slave trade, his favorite measure might have been a reality to-day instead of an illusion, and his own country as w^ell as Africa might have reaped the benefit of his labors. What good he did was the result of his democracy — what he failed to do is t«) be charged to his want of fidelity to the democratic principle. We claim for the Christian religion that among its funda- mental principles are justice, equity, and righteousness. This claim we vindicate by a reference among other things to the Christian records, in which we are informed that for their uni- versal and intolerable violation of these principles, the inhabi- tants of the old world were destroyed by a general deluge. And we do not abate one whit of the claim in consequence of the plea that some who repudiate the Christian religion have shown, in some directions, regard more or less significant for equity, righteousness, and justice. In like manner we claim that that the foundation principles of democracy are equity, justice, inalienable rights. We claim its unity with Christianity in this particular, and refer to the Christian record of the deluge in proof that the foun- dation principles of democracy were vindicated by the divine Author of that record, in that terrible visitation. Nor is our claim to be invalidated by the plea that some who repudiate democracy have rendered a partial homage to its principles. The cases are parallel — they are essentially one, and what Christianity claims in the case, democracy may claim also ; for the latter is only one particular phase or application of the former. And the claim is pertinently urged here, because many who profess to venerate, to teach and to exemplify Christianity affect in doing so, to move in a sphere too seraphic to be in- truded upon by any of the homely duties growing out of the claims of inalienable human rights. The Bib'p and the Chris- tian religion, they would have it understood, are otherwise 34 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. occupied, and have little to do in their teachings with secular objects like these. We point them to the Scripture record of the deluge. We bid them ponder the spectacle of a world de- stroyed on account mainly of the general and wide-spread vi- olation of those rights. And we ask whether a principle so precious in the sight of God does not demand their profound homao-e and reverent reo-ard. o o Not to understand lessons like those wrapped up in the story of the deluge, were to read the Christian records to little pur- pose. And it were in vain to institute a comparison betsveen Christianity and democracy unless we can look sufficiently be- low the surfaces and beyond the names of things to see the principle of democracy vindicated by that retribution. NO RECORD OF ANTEDELUVIAN GOVERNMENTS. We do not mean to sa}:- however, nor does our argument require it, that the violence which characterized so signally the world before the flood, was organized and wielded by oppressive and despotic governments in any extended or per- manent form. A general anarchy, the local and predatory rule of the stronger over the weaker, would equally or still more signally mark the disregard of a common brotherhood, the ut- ter forgetfulness of equal and inalienable rights. , For what is anarchy but a localized, everywhere present, capricious, and irresponsible despotism? Or what is a great and over- shadowing despotism, forcing nation after nation into the am- ple folds of Its widely-extended empire, but this same anar- chy operating in a wider field, and from the necessity of the case, or its own convenience, reducing itself somewhat more into a system, and doing its deadly work by something resem- bling method? Lawlessness is equally the characteristic of botli, for the.guardian of liberty is Law ; and law^ finds its home and its definition nowhere but in the bonds of an universal brotherhood, the claims of equality or equity, the demands of inherent and inalienable rights, identical with the principle of democracy and the genius of the Christian religion. From nothing in the sacred record can we infer even the existence of anything like political institutions before the del- DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 35 uge. We claim for civil government a divine origin, and the later Scriptures expressly sanction the statement. But Heav- en-established institutions bear not, of necessity, equal dates. The methods of divine culture for the benefit of our lapsed race, have been progressive. No fact on the sacred records can be more palpable than this. Even the Christian Church, properly so called, and in its most improved form, is the most recent of all in its origin, having been institu- ted but about eighteen centuries ago. An earlier church, in another form, was instituted in the time of Moses and Aa- ron. The germ of this commenced in the family of Abra- ham, before which time it seems not to have had any or- ganized existence beyond the bounds of each family circle, or distinguishable from it. It need be no matter of sur- prise that civil institutions, considered as gifts and ordi- nances of Heaven, should have been equally gradual and progressive in their development, and that no traces of their existence and no r-ecord of the institution of them, appear in the brief annals of the antedeluvians. The fam- ily, the primeval institution appears to have stood alone during this period, in process of experiment, so to speak, and to prove whether or no the depths of human debasement and corruption, at war with all that was precious in our common humanity and the holy brothorhood of the race, were an over-match for its divine powers. That experi- ment had its termination in the deluge. The problem had been solved, and that catastrophe was the monument of the solution. This view harmonizes with the remarkable fact that the first murderer was visited only with providential visita- tions and sucff results of his wrong doing as came with- out the intervention of penal inflictions at the hands of his fellow men. And when he feared summary vengeancj from them, the great Supreme Lawgiver who had just pronounced sentence in another form upon him, interfered with a solemn interdiction of any such manifestation on their part. Had it been intended to make this case an ex 36 DEiVlOCKACY UF CKlSTIANITV. ception to the general rule, theti would have been the time and that the fitting occasion for the promulgation of that rule. .If only private revenge was interdicted, we might look for some provision for an authorized public punish- ment of such crimes, at least by imprisonment, if not death. But nothing of the kind appears on the record, which seems unaccountable, if so important an institution as civ- il government had been given to the antedeluvians. On any other hypothesis, the lenity extended to Cain appears anomalous, contrasting strangely with the coun- ter injunction upon Noah, and afterwards re-enacted through Moses. But if God determined to draw out and exhibit the tendencies of human character while unre- strained by the operations of civil government, during the aiitedeluvian period, the transaction is easily explained in the light of that experiment, which was made under the double advantage of the freshness of the family institu- tion then just set in operation, and the lono- term of life during which parents and their children and children's children, to many generations, lived together and felt and saw daily the bonds of close affinity by which all who then lived on the earth were bound together in one great fam- ily, the first parent of whom lived nine hundred and thir- ty years, that fact precluding the possibility of their ima- gining or pretending different or superior or inferior ra- ces of men, some born to control, and others born to sub- mit. Adam lived more than one half of the entire period from his creation to the deluge, and until within 126 years of the birth of Noah. Methusaleh, who was 243 years cotemporary with Adam, lived until the very year of the deluge. The factoi the common origin t>f the human familjr, one might thinlc, could hardly have been forgotten, however lamentably the spirit o( equal brotherhood was lost and its claims disregarded. If it be true, as it seems to be, that the Creator institu- ted nothing like civil government before the deluge, and that neither human ing^enuity nor human nocessitiet DEMOCRACY OF CHKISTIANITY . 37 during that long period, so rife with anarchy and violence, suggested or provided any such safeguard, the circum- stance furnishes matter of profound reflection, and sug- gests answers to some important questions concerning civil government in general and the democratic polity in particular, which it seems desirable to understand. The feasibility of civilized societj^ and the safe enjoy- ment of rights without the intervention of civil govern- ment, in the present condition of human character, it must be conceded, does not seem very promising. Mankind should be slow, in the light of the antedeluvian records,'to adventure upon that experiment over again, or until moral influences become more effectual than at present. On the other hand the extreme backwardness, so to speak, of the all-wise and benevolent Father to entrust man with the authority of wielding penal law over his fellow-man, is little less creditable to the species. Or per- haps we may conclude that the individuality and separate accountability of each and every member of the human family personally to the one Great Judge, was a principle of administration so important in his sight, that he would not even seem to trench upon it by making man the ad- ministrator of penal law, and thus subjecting man to his equal brother, until the actual experiment should have vindicated, in the sight of the intelligent universe, the^wis- dom and even the necessity of doing so. It will be noticed, farther, that these views of the ante- deluvian records do not much favor the common notion that civil government is altogether of human origin — that man devised it, or that it can legitimately rest upon the basis of mere compact, or that it has its foundation in the supposed right of self-defence, which, it is said, arms every man with a weapon to save his own life, by taking away in advance the life of his assailant, (as though he might value his own life higher than his neighbors) a right which, in the aggregate of community, is supposed to em- power it, without any special divine vmrrant^ to take the 38 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIAIVITY. lite of the murderer, to preserve life. If such were the original and necessary rights of humanity — if such be the true oricrin and foundation of a righteous civil government how comes it to pass that no traces of sueh a govern- ment, nor of the divine recognition or institution of it ap- pears during the sixteen and an half centuries precedmg the deluge'? And why, in the absence of all this, do we have preserved to us the inspired record of the divine veto upon any such procedure, in the case of Cain and with no intimation that the case was a peculiar exception 1 Where was this boasted right of self-defence, in the indiv'idual and in the community, during the long period of this di- vine interdict, and while violence was abroad in the earth? Or are we to infer that it was durinfr the free exercise of this right, (with or without a divine interdict) that the earth, notwithstanding the supposed potency of this right, went on increasing in violence until it ripened for the deluge 1 And then, what becomes of the confident affirmation of many, tbat the ground and necessity of civil government lies not in human ciHme, but in human nature, as God formed it — that man's wants in a state of virtue would re- vtxi'ire it — that the masses of mankind, even then, and in the absence of crime, would need in their ordinary con- cerns the authoritative oversight and compulsocy control of the gifted few, who alone are competent to direct them 1 If this be so, why did God neglect to institute civil gov- ernment before the flood — nay, before the fall and the expul- sion from Eden, when the family institution was founded 1 And if a Heaven-anointed few, as some say, are divinely commissioned, at least in the present state of humanity, to wield the sword of the magistrate without the suft>ages of their brethren, because they are the wisest and best, and because the wrongs of humanity require at all events this sacred service at their hands, how shall we account for the silence of the antedeluvian records in respect to their commission 1 Nay, rather, how shall we account for their DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIAMTY. 39 not being silent in respect to the divine veto in the case of Cain upon any attempted exercise of such a supposed com- mission, existing as we are told in the very nature of things'? Where was Adam all this time, who lived nine hundred and thirty j^ears, and chiefly amid these scenes of vio- lence ? Where was Seth, who lived nine hundred and twelve years? Where was Methusalah, who lived nine hundred, sixty and nine years, even down to the year of the deluge? Where was Noah, who was "a just man^ and perfect in his generations V Where was Enoch, who " walked with God, after he begat Methuselah, three hun- dred years, and begat sons and daughters" \ And where were the " sons of God," the goodly company of the faith- ful, so conspicuous at one period of the history under re- view ? Where were they, that we hear nothing of their bearing the sword, as Job and Abraham 'afterwards did. in " breaking the jaws of the wicked, and plucking the prey out of their teeth" ? Among all these, were there none to be entrusted with such a commission 1 Were none of them the Heaven-anointed, the wisest and best, God-com- missioned to execute judgment for the wronged, to adminis- ter penal law ; not even while Cain stalked at large, builded cities, and became sire of nations, the terror and yet the cor- rupter of a hemisphere 1 Were they ignorant of their high commission ; or did they shrink from the responsibilities devolving upon them 1 On the other hand is it not possi- ble that they understood correctly their position, and were content, if God pleased, to be heroes of endurance, rather than heroes of protection or of achievement, so far as phy- sical force vi^as concerned'? Be this as it may, the divine right of kings in the sphere of civil government, appears to find no char- ter dating so far back as the antedeluvian records. Its date must be more modern. It stands not in the change- less nature of things, nor yet in the essential and inherent characteristics and wants of human nature. So at least we are led to infer from the records. Whether others will 40 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. see in them what the writer has attempted to exibit, or draw the same inferences from his data, he deemed them too significant to be ligiitly passed over. That the concliisioDS above hinted at would be sufficiently established from this data alone, he would not affirm ; nor indeed that from any data hereafter to be reached, they can all be maintain- ed. Without seeking to forestall the inquiry before us, or deciding thus early all the points to be reached by it, he only asks that these facts and suggestions be treasured up and allowed their due weight. Some light on our subject ought to be derived from the antedeluvian experiment and records. CHAPTER IV. NOAH AND THE NEW WORLD — THE TIMES OF THE PATRIARCHS. The entire human family, since the deluge, according to the Christian records, are as obviously and as indisputably descended from Noah as from Adam. The care and preci- sion with which the earliest of the nations of antiquity (whose connexion with most o[ the more modern nations is well known to us) is connected in the record with the immediate descendants of Noah, his sons, grandsons, and great grandsons whose namesand locations are recorded, are evidently designed and adapted to furnish us with the start- ing point and key-note of all authentic history, ancient and modern. This object the Scripture records have accomplish- ed, insomuch that the earnest student of history is com- pelled to resort to them for the clear light they, shed on the darkness and confusion, the fable and perplexity which otherwise set his investigations at defiance, a light which at once brings order out of chaos — a light no where else to be obtained, and compelling the assent of intelligent DEMOCRACV OF CHRISTIANITY. 4^ and candid skeptics themselves to the authenticity and correctness of the record. And what have we here but a re-publication, so to speak, nay more, a re-enactment, a new manifestation of the grand fact of human equality and common brotherhood, produced over again in a new form, of a more recent date, and still more demonstrably connecting the first terms of the series wath those that come after them, link after link, in the broad sun-light of universal history, and reaching down even to ourselves 1 A vast chain, one end ot which is fastened to the resting place of the ark on Mount Ara- rat, and whose ample coil enfolds and binds together all nations, all tribes, all families, all, individuals of the human species, to the end of time ! Is there no moral lesson in all thisl Nothing instruc- tive, significant, impressive, and pertinent to the great inquiry we have proposed 1 What is the lesson Christi- anity is teaching us in these venerable records, if it be not the great democratic principle of human equality and com mon brotherhood ] And is not the importance and value of the lesson indi cated by the peculiar circumstances under W'hich it was taught, and the specific object for w4iich it was more im- mediately designed ? A contemptuous disregard of the foundation principle of democracy had ruined a world, and now in ushering in a new world, the very first thing to be done for its enlightenment and future guidance w-as to bring the scene of human brotherhood and equality upon the stage of human life, to be acted over again ! What is the voice of God, according to the Christian records, in all this, if it be not that while man lives on the earth, and while the bow of promise spans the arch of heaven over his head, the law of democratic equality, Heaven-imposed in E len and re-iterated on Ararat, is to be a fundamental law of his being, from the control of which he is never to escape, and from the practical application of which, where- ever it is appropriate, he is never to diverge ? 42 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. Who that has an eye or a heart to read the Scriptures — who that having reverently read them as coming from God, and pondered the era of Noah, can look upon " the token of the covenant made with every living creature^ for perpetual generations," the ''bow in the clouds" in the day of rain, without thinking of the tie that binds him to the most degraded of his species — without repressing re- ligiously the first risings of aristocratic pride 1 " While the earth remaineth, while seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and wnnter, and day and nioht shall not cease," God's holy law of the common brother- hood and equality of th« human family shall remain like- wise. When the law^s of nature are repealed, it will be in time to inquire after a repeal of the fundamental prin- ciple of deraocracy, co-eval with hunaanity and parallel to its existence. THE FIRST CHARTER OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. This new and impressive repetition of the doctrine of universal common brotherhood, is immediately followed in the inspired record with a repetition of fhe original grant of kingly power to the family of man, over the earth and over the animal creation j and this grant is made to stand as an introduction or preface to a charter of civil government — the first on record among all the nations of the earth. The fall of the race from their original integrity, their expulsion from paradise^ the murder of Abel, the general anarchy and violence of antedeluvian society, and the con- sequent destruction of the entire race, with the exception of a single family, had all intervened between the original grant of the soil and of the animals to the entire human family. And the question might naturally enough be raised, whether privileges and rights thus shamefully for- feited were to be considered as still valid ; whether in any form they were to be renewed, or whether some select few who were to be regarded as the symbols of the Great Father, the incarnate embodiments of Strength, Wisdom, DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 43 and Goodness were not to be singled out as the exclusive lords of this lower world, to whom not only the inferior creation but the masses of humanity were to do homage. How reads the record ? <'And God biessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them : Be fruitful and multiply and replenish t/ie earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon" every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the seajinto your hand are they delivered."-Gen. ix 1-2. Here it will be perceived that the grant was as unre- stricted to all the posterity of Noah, as it had been to the posterity of Adam. It was to ma?i that the commission was given ; it was into their hand that the world and its contents were delivered. How then could man be the property of man ? How could man claim dominion over his fedows, in his own intrinsic right! How could there be a civil government in which the masses of the commu- nity were not to participate 1 Notice how the Creator and Disposer of all, has introduced the subject and in what manner he has adjusted and settled it. We continue our quotation without omission : " Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you: even as the green herb have 1 given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require ; at the hands of every beast will 1 require it, and at the hand of man, at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sh^ddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man." — lb. 3 — 6. The unbroken continuity of the address to " Noah and his sons," (i. e. his posterity) connects the grant of do- minion over the be^^sts and over the soil, with the grant of the civil dominion essential to the protection of human life. The whole is committed not to a single individual — an autocrat, not to a select few — an aristocracy ; but to the posterity of Noah, to man, to the brotherhood of the human familv. 44 DEiMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITI'. The closing clause of the last sentence and the re- enactment of the statute under Moses (Lev. xxiv. 17.) pre- clude the interpretation of some who would render it into a mere prediction or declaration of a general fact. The argument against capital punishment, in our age of the Avorld, if valid, must rest on some other basis. That prob- lem comes not within the scope of our present inquiry, yet we may hint that He who gave the law to Noah and to Moses, but did not give it to the antedeluvians, has a right if He sees fit, to repeal it. The simple question is whether, or when, or where He has done so. To the New Testa- ment records must be referred the decision, as a repeal can not be claimed under the Old. The record we have quoted is a law, not to Noah alone, but to his posterity ; not to any particular family or nation. It was as binding upon the posterity of Nahor as upon those of Abraham, upon the descendants of Ishmael as upon those of Isaac, upon the children of Esau as upon those of Jacob. It was a general law until repealed, for the entire family of man. And the execution of the law as well as the adjudication of cases coming under it was committed to man. This was the first authorized forcible control and condign punishment of man by his fellow man. that appears upon the Scripture records. And the germ and charter of civil government will be found to be wrapped up in the statute. A few things in this charter deserve notice: 1. It ^vas to "Noah and his sons," (see verse 1) to his posterity that the statute Avas given and the charter gran- ted. To man as man — to the mass of community, not to any particular family or hereditary succession — not to the strongest, nor to the oldest, nor to the wisest, nor to the best, but to all alike and in the aggregate, was the charge given. On them,and^not on any select few, was the char- ter conferred — on them all rested the responsibility of its administration — a comprehensive veto upon all forms and pleas of autocratic usurpation — God's own answer, if the DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 45 record be from Him, to nil who during the term covered by the charter, shall set up on any pretexts their exclusive claims to compulsory authority over their fellow-men. Those who set up these claims must look elsewhere than to this ninth chapter of Genesis for their charter of civil government. More than this, they must in some way dis- pose of the rival and counter charter it contains. With this high power vested in the community at large, what space remains for their exclusive claim 1 How shall the masses become voluntarily the liege subjects of such claim- ants without relinquishing their charter, and repudiating the high responsibilities it imposes upon them l Or how shall the select few press their claims without rebelling aofainst the arranf^ements of this divine charter 1 If sub- ject to the community in which (as in the Christian church*) "ail are subject to one another," how can that same community submit to their exclusive claims of do- minion 1 2. The scope and specifications of the charter may af- ford some light concerning- the ground, nature, necessity, proper object and function of civil government. The old world had just been swept away by a flood because it was '^Z- Zct/ztvV/ii'/o/e/2cc," with outrages upon human rights. The ex- periment of having a habitable world without the restraints of penal law had proved a failure, and that experiment was not again to be tried in the then existing state of society, as it could not be without the moral certainty that its in- tolerable anarchy would again demand a deluge. What was to be done? The promise, "1 will not again curse the ground an^ more for man's sake," " neither will I again smite any more every living thing as 1 have done," *' neither shall flesh be cut oft' any more by the waters of a flood, neither shall there be any more a flood to destroy the earth" must needs be connected with such an institu- tion of penal law among men as God foresaw would assist * Vide Eph, v. 21. and i Peter v. 5. 3^ 46 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. in preventing the necessarj^ recurrence of some such des- olating visitation. Human crime., then, and in the form of violence, and outrage between man and man., was the occasion of the charter and of the statute. In the absence of such crime there could have been no occasion for either. The highest form of vi olence and outrage was singled out in the specification, hyj^i the principle involved might be fairly construed to in- clude all violence, outrage, and high-handed and manifest injustice between man and man. Further than this the principle involved does not seem to reach. If it be the proper province of civil government to prescribe modes of worship, to supply religious teaching, to superintend edu- cation, to direct the industry and commercial intercourse of individuals (beyond the simple execution ot justice) to engage in works appropriate to individual or combined voluntary enterprise, to look after the special interests of one class or another of the citizens, to grant monopolies of certain avocations or exclusive privileges lo one class in distinction from another, to build up the interests of one state or nation at the expense of another, to extend the ju- risdiction or empire of any particular portion or descrip- tion of the human family — if these and similar functions belong properly to civil government, in any age of the world, they do not appear to have been included in the general and original charter to " Noah and his sons," and we must look for the warranty of them elsewhere. What- ever origin these usages may claim, we may be justified in the conclusion that ^' from the beginning it was not so." 3. We look in vain likewise into this charter for the complex and expensive forms and arrangements of our modern civil governments, of whatever name — or for any thing from which the greater part of them can be fairly inferred. This results much from the very limited func- tions included in the charter. Whatever forms were ne- cessary to the proper execution of the work described DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIA.NITV. 47 would be warranted, of course ; but these ^vould be very simple and plain. It may be more than doubted that any legislative power, properly so called, can be deduced from the grant. The legislation appears to have been included in the charter — the specification and the principle amount- ing to no more than what we now designate Common Law. To administer this common law in each locality, a sim- ple judiciary and executive power would be needed. These in their several localities, " Noah and his sons''^ were to provide. Extended jurisdictions, states, kingdoms, and empires with their gorgeous and costly paraphanalia would scarcely be required. All these may have grown out of them in time, as doubtless they did ; but whether in furtherance or hindrance of the original design is to be considered. Very evidently they could not be essential to the work. The bearing of all this upon the principles and upon the usages of a simple democracy — the most simple that can be imagined — need hardly be insisted upon. The original charter of civil government is the most extremely and exclu- sively democratic and simple that the world has yet seen. And this was all, according to the Christian records, that the Creator of men would institute, even after the pregnant experiment of the antedeluvians and the terrible catastro- phe of the deluge. He who knew what was in man, and in what manner human madness was best managed and counteracted, does not appear to have inferred from the premises, such conclusions in favor a " strong govern- ment," so called, and the subjugation of the masses to the select few as our modern alarmists have been wont to do, in contemplation of scenes of anarchy and violence. The horrors of servile insurrections, the terrors of the First French Revolution — how often have these been appealed to as unanswerable arguments in favor of despotic power, and against human freedom ! But what were these to the horrors of antedeluvian violence and the catastrophe of the general deluge, from which the Creator inferred nof 48 ijemocracy of Christianity. the necessity of autocratic authoritj', but the propriety of democratic jurisdiction. 4. The principle of civil government — its authority and warrant — are here seen to lie, if we mistake not, in the direct charter of the Creator, not in the supposed right of self-defense, not in any imaginary social compact, in which a portion of our original rights (personal self-defense among the rest) were given up to secure the greater safe- ty of the rights reserved. Instead of this anti-democra- tic fiction, we have, in the Christian records, the matter-of- fact divine charter g^ c\y\\ government, not the fabulous and absurdly imagined social compact, which nobody ever made, and of which history has preserved no record ! In this divine charter, none of our rights are compromised, but all of them are guarantied, and the only authority of the government — in other words of the community — con- sists in the obligation imposed by the charter, to see that each msm's original rights are preserved inviolate and un- impaired. 5. And this view bases the civil and political rights and duties both of society and of the individual, not upon mere estimates of expediency, upon calculations of advantage, upon exegencies of supposed necessity, (the tyrant's plea) but upon the broad and changeless foundation of im- mutable and eternal right^ coeval with human existence, and firm as the divine throne. It enthrones conscience as the divinely authorized ex- ponent of law, and requires allegiance only to the True and the Right. Thus it clothes a righteous civil govern- with the authority of God, but absolves the individual and the minority when either the community or the autocrat undertake to "frame mischief by a law." Can there be anything more truly Christian or more radically democra- tic than this 1 6. This divine charter bears date prior to all other po- litical and civil institutions j it is the oldest as wed as the highest precedent of civil anthority — a charter repealable DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 49 only by the Power that enacted it. To what extent " No- ah and his sons " availed themselves of this charter or fulfilled the obligations connected with it, in those early ao-es, are other questions concerning which our informa- tion is but scanty. The institution may have become per- verted or lost in as short a time as were the institutions of the Ne\kTestament, but that circumstance impeaches not the inspire record or authority of the institution in the one zase more than in the other. Nimrod (grandson of Ham, the Jupiter Ammon or chief god of antiquity) was a military hero and " the first king we read of in authen- tic history." " Casting off the fear of God and acting in defiance of the divine prohibition of shedding blood, he rendered himself notorious, and his name became a prov- erb." "And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar." This was the origin of Babylon, the seat of theancient idolatry, in- somuch that the name became synonymous with false w^or- ship, and was symbolical, even down to the date of the Apocalypse, of everything despotic and anti-christian— at war with Jehovah and His Messiah. Had Nimrod and his associates and successors revered the true God, and hon- ored his charter of civil government to Noah and his sons, Babylon would have been a democracy— a city of true worshippers, " a name and a praise in the whole earth." PATRIARCHAL SIMPLICITY. The principle of democracy has its manifestations and developments in the walks of social and private life, quite as significantly as in the sphere of politics and in the forms^of civil or ecclesiastical polity. So long as the most elevated and honorable in society provide for their daily wants by the labor of their own hands, per- formmjT m their own families the homely offices that in more polished circles are accounted menial or vulgar, and so long as a corresponding simplicity prevails in modes of living'and habits of social intercourse, we may be certain that the democratic principle is still in the ascendant 5^ DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITr. whatever titles or forms may be in voorue, especially if these features of society are found in connexion with gen- eral intelligence, sobriet^r, industry, competency, hospital- ity, and a good degree of progress m the arts and manners of civilization. The recordsof Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, with their families and cotemporaries, are rich in illustrations of our meaning. These scripture worthies appear to have been among the principal men of their times. Abraham was re- garded among his neighbors as « a mighty prince," and on one occasion he went forth with '' trained servants born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen" to the rescue of his captive kinsman. But when the narrative tells us that, on the arrival of guests who came to his tent on foot, Abra^ ham " ran to the herd and fetched a calf tender and good, and gave it to a young man, and he hasted to dress it,'' and ''he hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said. Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it', and bake cakes on the hearth"— we cannot help feeling that this " mighty prince" was less aristocratic than many of our democratic judges of county courts, or untitled citi- zens of opulence and fashion. We are not prepared nor concerned to bestow unqualified commendation on all the arrangements and usages of patriarchal life as being either democratic or Christian. In the servitude of those times, connected as it was with polygamy, there may have been features not to be admired or copied ; and yet the pretense is wholly an unwarrantable one, that any thing akin to our modern chattel enslavement was practiced by the pa- triarchs just named. The servitude of their dependants was not even in any sense an involuntary one. This is evident from a number ot considerations and incidents of the narrative. There was no -prince," monarch, or organized government of any kind superior to those patri- archs, to whom they owed allegiance, or on whose power they could depend to enforce the servitude in question or prevent the flight of fugitives. And how could one man DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITV. 51 hold in durance four hundred armed men 1 Are our mod- ern slav^eholders willing to arm their slaves and commit their own defense to them 1 'One of Abraham's servants, Eliazer of Damascus, was his presumptive heir while he remained childless. The same or another servant was sent by him into a foreign country to obtain a wife for his son Isaac, which delicate mission he successfully perform- ed and returned. Jacob, the heir of Isaac and Abraham, came not into possession of their servants, but became a servant himself to his kinsman Laban, and then and after- wards had other servants in his own employ. A sort of modified and unduly extended family govern- ment under the patriarchs, appears to have besn the pre- vailing civil government of their times. Something of this kind may have been the magistracy of Job, perhaps with the additional assent of his neighbors, and in accordance with the charter to " Noah and his sons." He seems to have entered into the true spirit of his office. " I delivered," says he, " the poor that cried, the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The blessing of many ready to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for J03'. I put on righteousness and it clothed me, my judgment was a robe and a diadem. I was eyes to the blind and {c(it was I to the lame. I was a father to the poor, and the cause 1 knew not, I searched out. And i brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth. — Job xxix. 12 — 17. The patriarchal form, by bringing large numbers under the control of an individual, and especially when that con- trol was extended to hired laborers, shepherds and domes- tic servants, on an extended scale, might gradually dis- place or throw into the shade th© more democratic char- ter to Noah and his sons; and monarchical institutions might grow out of these usages, after a time. The rela- tion of capitalists and operatives in our own day has a simi- lar tendency, as we know. Thus divine institutions are gradually changed and superseded by the usages of men. 52 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIAN IT V. THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN. While virtuous principles and democratic habits were in a state of comparative preservation amid the scenes of pastoral life, the rich and populous cities were becoming corrupted, effeminate, and dissolute. Lot, the friend and kinsman of Abraham, had separated from him to avoid occasions of strife between their herdsman. There being no exclusive monopoly of the soil at that time, in that region, the matter was amicably settled between them : *' And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife I pray thee between me and thee, and between my herdsman and thy herdsmen, for ive be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee ? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me. If thou wilt take the left hand then will I go to the right, or if thou depart to the right^ hand then will I po to the left." Lot chose the valley of Jordan, and " pitched his tent toward Sodom. But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly." — Geji. xiii. Of the particular character and specific manifestations of their wickedness we are else vhere informed : "Behold this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her, and in her daughters, neither did sht? strengthen the hands of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abominations before me : therefore I took them away as I saw good." — Ezek. xvi. 49, 50. In more modern phraseology the passage inaj^ be para- phrased thus : The crowning sin of Sodom was the aristocracy of over- grown and exorbitant wealth. Relying on their indepen- dent fortunes, her citizens lived luxuriously, educated their families delicately, without inuring them to habitual labor, while they neglected to extend relief to the poor. They were aristocratic in their tastes, deportment, and manners, looking down upon those who could not vie with them in their idleness and splendor, as inferiors. They became self-indulgent, pleasure-loving, and dissolute in DEMOCRACY OF OIIKISTIAMTV. 53' tiieir morals. For these causes God saw fit to destroy tliem. Proverbial as were the Sodomites for their gross impu- rities, it is quite remarkable that in the propliet's account of the causes of their overthrow, this circumstance is but once lightly hinted at,while the more generic sin ofbeing ar- istocratic is thrice repeated in varying and significant forms of speech. The description answers to that which histo- rians have often employed in describing the luxury, corrup- tion of manners, and decline of the spirit of liberty and equality in some republic, on the eve o( the subversion of its free institutions, and the establishment of despotic power upon their ruins; and the description would answer for most of the populous and wealthy cities of our own times, as Ezekiel reminded the citizens of Jerusalem in his day, that it was appropriate to them. The account in Genesis gives ns indeed a frightful im- pression of the anarchy, violence, debauchery, and law- lessness prevailing in Sodom on the evening preceeding its destruction, when Lot was charged with an impertinent intermeddling and an unauthorized interference, because he gently remonstrated with them as brethren. But if the journals of some of our more modern cities do not belie them, the recurrence of similar riots for similar causes has not been uncommon. " Then the Lord reigned upon Sodom and upon Gomor- rah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven, and Hcoverthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the in- habitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground." * * # * * * "And Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord. And lie looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and lo! the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace." Such, according to the Scripture records, was an appro- priate expression of God's abhorrence of the spirit of aris- tocracy and of the arrogance, self-indulgence, sensuality, 54 DE.MUCKAOV OF OllRlSTlANlir. vice, violence, and oppression connected with and engen- dered by it, in the days of Lot and of Abraham. How then, according the Christian religion, does the same God who changes not, regard similar manifestations of character now! With how much complacency can He look upon the modern monuments of aristocratic distinction, splendor, luxury, effeminacy, and pride; upon mansions whose idle occupants devour the hard earnings of the poor, and frame the fraudulent and oppressive arrangements which deprive them of bread. The language of Cowper, in his apostro- phe to London, may be appropriate elsewhere : " Ten ritjIUuDus would have saved a city, once. And tliou ha-t many lifliteous; well for tliep, Thit salt pre-serves li.ee, more corrupted, e.Ue, An 1 llu^rerore more obnoxinis, at this hour, Than So Jo n in her day h id power to he, For who n God heard Ins Alir'aaai plead in vain." Abraham retained and cherished the spirit of equal common brotherhood. Abraham was the friend of God. Lot was a righteous man. He regarded human rights, and expostulated with the sons of violence and pride, "God turned the cities of iSodom and Gomorrah into ash- es, and condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensnmple unto those that after should live ungodly; and de- livered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked." — 2 Peter ii. 6, 7. Does Christianity teach us notliing concerning aristoc- racy and democracy, when the records present contrasts like these \ Is there nothing of warning here to the pam- pered favorites and apologists of the one, or of encourage- ment to the hated and self-denying advocates of the other, in times when fulness of bread, idleness, and haughty vio- lence are preying upon the vitals of the poor, and rioting in self-indulgence and pleasure! DEMOOHAUY OF CHRISTIANITY. 56 CHAPTER V. EGYPT AND THE HEBREWS. The Bible account of the oppression of the Hebrews in Egypt and of their wonderful deliverance by the^ hand of Moses, is full of instruction on the subject of our present inquiry. In connexion with what we learn of the ancient Egyptians from other sources of information, the story becomes significant in more aspects than one, and is every way interesting and important. Egypt appears to have been the earliest of the ancient nations that rose to a high state of mental culture and improvement in the arts and sciences. Not less remarkable was she for her wealth and power. The world was filled with her renown. She was the cra- dle of learning — the teacher as well as the granery of antiquity. "Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," and this circumstance appears to have been the inlet of literature among the Hebrews. We hear nothino^ of their havinof a knowledcre of letters till then. Phoenecia, Rome, and Greece, in turn, received the ele- ments of learning from Egypt, and even down to the Au- gustan period, when literature and science were at their meridian, the more opulent Greek and Roman citizens sent their sons to Egypt for education, just as some of the same class in America resort to the universities of Europe, now. Euclid, the father of geometry, was an Egyptian. And yet the Egyptians of antiquity were negroes. He- roditus, the father of profane history, who had resided in Egypt and travelled in Ethiopia — from whence the Egyp- tians, as he tells us had their origin — declares that they were in his day one people ; and he describes them as being of a glossy jet black complexion, with com- pressed nostrils, and frizzled hair. The celebrated statues of tho Sphynx> one of the " seven wonder? 56 UEMOORACY OF GHRISTIANITY. the world," exhibit the same features to tlie present da}^, and thus prove the truth of the statement. These facts are of primary significance in disposing of questions of races and castes, and of the alledg- ed superiority of some races over others. At no pe- riod have the boasted Anglo Saxons, as we term them, held so high a position comparatively speaking, among the races that surrounded them, as did the race whom we now de- nominate negroes and whom we treat as inferior — forget- ful that all the literature and science in the world, except perhaps what may be claimed by the Hindoos and Chinese, may be traced directly or indirectly to them.* What a lesson to the aristocracy of descent and of race ! What a rebuke to national pride ! Connecting these facts with the Scripture records, we might ask, in the first place, what had become of the alledgcd curse of the negro race, the supposed descendants of Ham, to the end of time, as decyphered from the enig- matic language of Noah — a sentence sometimes const rued, not merely as prophetic (which could confer no right) but as a divine sanction to all the v/rongs inflicted on the Af- ricans and their descendants, on all parts of the world ever smce. However construed, the record pre.ients to us this same negro race as standing in the times of xMoses on that place of pre-eminence in the human family, where Herod- itus and later historians assure us they were seen stand- ing for many centuries afterwards. Whether, as some think, the prediction (for nothing more can be made of it) was accomplished in the subjugation of the Canaanitesby Joshua, the great fact of negro ascendency for ages, and as far back as the bondage of the Hebrews in Egypt, nay, rather, at that still earlier period when the sons of Jacob went down into Egj^pt to buy corn, is a fact as well estab- lished as any thing can be, by the concurrent testimonies of sacred and profane history. Thus is swept away the * See an inlcreslinji speech be fore the Culonization^Society, hv Alexan- der H. Everett, Ibrmerly Editor of the North American Review. DKMOLIHACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 57 pretGiided sanction of oppression by the perpetual curse of the children of Ham !* If the subsequent degradation of the same race, once so enlightened and powerful, be thought an enigma too hard for solution or even credence, or calling for a revived edi- tion of Noah's curse to shed light upon it, let reference be had to that remarkable prophecy of Ezekiel, (Chapter 29) more intelligible and definite than that of Noah, which personifies Egypt as "a great dragon [or crocodile] that lieth in the midst of his rivers,, which hath said. My river is my own and 1 have made it for myself" — boasting in aristocratic arrogancy and pride, breaking in pieces the surrounding nations, and treacheroursly piercing like a spear the confiding hand that by treaties of alliance has leaned upon it as a staff. Then comes the prediction : " It shall become the basest of the kingdoms, neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations; for 1 will diminish them, and they shall no more rule over the nations." At the promulgation of this prophecy its fulfilment was as improbable, to human view, as a similar prediction would now be concerning France, England, or the United States of America. But Egypt for ages, to say nothing of the other branches of the Ethiopian family, has presen- ted us the fac simile of Ezekiel's Daguerreotype — another lesson to be remembered by the sons of pride, especially by those who quote the curse of Ham as an apology for their oppressions. Let them beware lest the retributions of Ham become their own, and be entailed upon their pos- terity. Oppressors, aristocrats, and their apologists the world over should tremble, and not insanely bless them- selves when they think of the curse that fell upon the Af- ricans! He who could degrade the first born, the most exalted, the most noble, the most proud of the ancient civ- * Anotiicr remarkable circumstance is, that^riam, tlje fourvior nf E'jvpt and Lybia and lather of tlic iu'irr'> race, was the Ju niter Auim.m ot an- tiquity, worshipped as a woJ, not onlv by his posterity, but by the Greeks and Romans, 58 DEMOCRACY OF CHRIftTIAMTY. ilized nations, can degrade thtm. If not even *' the god- like Ethiopians," as the ancients of our own hue were wont to call the sable race (almost loading them with di- vine honors) could withstand the withering blast of their Maker's indignation for their pride, what are " the paler nations of the north" that they should withstand Him \ One link in the heavy chain of crime that ultimatel}'" de- graded Egypt, was the treatment of the Hebrews that had settled within her borders. The Christian records give prominence to this history, and forages afterwards it was the burden of sacred song, the theme of poets and states- men, of philosophers and sages. Even the New Testa- ment writers recur to it for lessons of instruction — the beloved disciple on Patmos, in his revelations of the future, interweaving the triumphal " song of Moses, the servant of God " at the Red Sea with the sons of the redeemed of the Lamb to the end of time. There must be deep signi- ficance in an event like this. Let us look after its mean- ing. The government of Egypt had become monarchical and even despotic. The simple execution of justice between a man and his neighbor was no longer the grand object of its arrangements. Other views of the proper functions of civil government had displaced the simple elements of the divine charter to " Noah and his sons.'' Not individ- ual rights, but the glory of the state, the splendor of the grand monarch, were the political ideas now in the ascend- ant. The responsibility of government was no longer un- derstood to rest upon the shoulders of the people. The royal throne had usurped their place, and they had no- thing to do but to recognize the divine right of kings, as their priests had doubtless taught them, and bow down reverently before them. And had they not felt as well as witnessed kingly power \ The land had become the mon- arch's, they tilled it as his tenants at will, or as serfs. This arrangement, apparently originating in an act of mercy to their forefathers, and entered into at the'r ear- DEMOORAOV OF O'HRISTI^NITY. 59 nest request,* was now the constitutional law of the em- pire. No land monopoly perhaps was ever commenced with belter intentions, or could boast a more respectable origin. But, whatever of philanthropy, of political saga- city, or knowledge of political economy, may have been manifested in its original enactment, the final result was the same. The king was supreme, and reigned, as was supposed, in his own kingly right. The people were his landless vassals, the priests only excepted, and even these were subsidized by the kingly bounty. In a state thus constituted, and whose original inhabi- tants had come into this position, it was not to be suppo- sed that a colony of foreigners, of different customs, reli- gion, habits and manners, would obtain favors that should elevate them above the other citizens. The reverse wou Id almost necessarily be the re suit. Their avocation of rear- ing and tending cattle, was considered by the Egyptians degrading or servile. (Gen. xlvi. 34.) Imperceptibly, but almost inevitably, they fell into the condition of an in- ferior caste. No participancy in the government, by the election of their rulers, protected them. Nor could they appeal to their Egyptian neighbors to shield them in the exercise of the right of suffrage, which they did not wield even for themselves. Thus defenceless, and surrounded by no masses of men who felt that they had any means of protecting them, or that they were under any obligations to do so, the He- brews, were of course, completely in the hands of the Pha- raohs who ruled over them. Nor is it likely that they had, in any waj^ any strong hold upon the sympathies or the pecuniary interests of the Egyptians, tliougk they were not their slaves. The bondage ot the Hebrews in Egypt was * See Gen. xlvii. The narrative leads us \o suppose thai Joseph made these arranjroments, not by any divine direction, but in the exercise of hisownjuogment. And the rase is not the onlv one in which human saaacily com rolled by the best uiientions of irnpertect rnnn, has originated poliucal regulations subversive ot human Ireedoii), i,i the lon-r run and showing the wisJom of confining civil government to its oriirjnal charter. :60 DEMOORAGY OF CHRISTIANITV. not personal servitude to individuals in any form. Still less were they held as chattels. They were not bought or sold, by individual Egyptians ; nor does it appear that Pharaoh claimed any such proprietorship in them. We hear nothing of their having been cut off by law from ac- cess to literature, or of their having been restrained from the free exercise of their religion, until Moses requested that they might go into the wilderness to offer sacrifices. The rights of marriage and of the family relation do not appear to have been outraged, except in the murderous edict for the destruction of their male children, and this appears to have been executed, if at all, to only a very limited extent, and for a short period.* They held prop- erty. They had numerous flocks and herds. They could buy and sell. They held the occupancy of land bj^ the same tenure probably with the Egyptians. As they were not in the condition of modern slaves, so neither were they famishing like the oppiessed people of Ireland. In the wilderness, after their emancipation, they longed for the leeks and onions and flesh-pots of Egypt, and, unlike Irish emio-rants or fugitive slaves, desired to return back again. The climax of oppression, as frequently witnessed in more modern times, was never endured by the Hebrews in Egypt. The sum of the record is this : — The king and people of Egypt grew jealous of the in- creasing wealth and numbers of the Hebrew colonists, for "the land was filled with them," and in the event of a war it was feared that they might join vv'ith the enemy, and throw off the yoke. '^ Therefore they did set over them task masters, to af- flict them with their burdens. And they built for Pha- raoh treasure cities, Pithom and Ramases. But the more they afflicted them the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel. And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor. And they made their lives bitter with hard * t^xod'js i. DEMOCRACY OF CHRTI'TIA MTY.* 6] Dondage, in mortar, and ia brick, and in all manner of service in the field ; all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigor." — Ex. i. 11-14. It has been conjectured that they vrcre also employed in building some of the celebrated pyramids. Be this as it may, the record just quoted establishes the fact that they were employed on great and magnificent public works, for the use and under the direction of the government ; that th» work of internal improvements was then considered as falling legitimately within the sphere of governmental provision and superintendency, that the king and his sub- jects were earnestly intent on the vigorous prosecution of these great national enterprises, that national aggrandize- ment and at the expense of a supposed inferior or subor- dinate race, not distinctively Egyptian, were leading po- litical ideas then in the ascendant ; that for these consid- erations the continued residence of the Hebrews in Egypt and Egyptian control over them, were esteemed objects of commanding importance, and that the oppression of the Hebrews, like many other similar oppressions that might be mentioned, gre\y out of these views of civil o-overn- ment and political economy in the most natural manner imaginable, and were in no essential point, distinguishable from arrangements which prevail, more or less, amono- the leading civilized and professedly Christian nations of our own times. The labor of the Hebrews was extorted in the form of a tax, payable by the delivery, at stated periods, of a cer- tain number of bricks ; very much like the tax levied, some years since, by the Dutch government of Java, in the East Indies, upon the native Javanese, and payable in specified quantities of coffee and other products. The Hebrews appear to have been taxed to the full amount of their ability to pay, (a standard by no means uncommon, as millions of Englishmen and Irishmen can testify,) and so at one period were the Javanese, and the government warehouses at the » treasure city" of Batavia in 1818-19 4 02 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY, were said to contain more than three-fourths of all the joflee, the staple product that was then raised on the island. The Hebrews had bread and clothing : the almost literally naked Javanese subsisted on spontaneous pro- • ductions. Both the Hebrews and the Javanese were under a government that did not represent them, and in the ad- ministration of which they had no voice. And the He- brews and the Javanese were both oppressed by the taxes levied upon them as they could not have been by a sys- tem of day labor, restricted to ten hours per day, or some such humane regulation. In both cases, the tax was on the principle of class legislation, one portion of the people being subject to it, while a favored class were exempt. It was for the iniquities of her political eco)io??iy as thus described, a policy to be defined as being, at every point, at war with the well-known demands of the democratic principle, that the successive plagues of Egypt, in quick succession, and in token of the divine disapprobation were inflicted by miracle upon her! At every step of the in- cipient process which led to the perpetration of this poli- tical wickedness, a slight infusion of the democratic prin- ciple would have tended strongly to turn the current of affairs in another direction and avert the catastrophe. The monopoly of the land and the subsidy of the priest- hood had laid the foundation of the despotism under which the Hebrews groaned, and it was no source of consolation or of deliverance to them that this arrangement had its origin with a profound political economist, a virtuous and benev- olent statesman, a benefactor of their ancestors, and by birth, and in sympathy and interest one of their own num- ber, his own children sharing their lot with them. The mischief was there, in the violation of the princi- ple of democracy, and no benevolence or foresight on the part of the prince who had enacted it, couldturn aside its effects or furnish a panacea for its evils. The same ar- rangement that had made vassals of them had also made serfs of the Egyptians, and thus cut off all hopes of as- DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. . G3 sistance from tliat quarter. At one point of the history- there seemed indeed some little indication of a popular rising in their favor. The Nile had been turned into blood, the frogs, the lice and the flies, had infested, in turn, the whole land, a " grievous murrain" had destroy- ed the beasts, and '* a boil breaking forth with blains upon man and upon beast" had succeeded ; the hail mingled with fire had smitten *' throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast, and every herb and tree of the field " Then it was that some of the people feared the word of the Lord and took shelter from the hail ; " and Pharaoh's servants said unto him, How long shall this man be a snare unto us 1 Let the men go that they may serve the Lord their God : Knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed V This truly democratic remonstrance, had it only been persisted m, and consist- ently carried out by the mass of the peoph of Egypt, might have averted the impending judgments of heaven, the plague of the locusts, the thick darkness, the destroy- ing angel at midnight, and the final overthrow in the Red Sea. Alas ! The spirit of democracy and of human broth- erhood was not in them. Other and rival sentiments had taken possession of their hearts and hardened them against God and humanity. Too long had they been servile and knew not how to be freemen. Too long had they cringed before a despot and knew not how to trust in their Crea- tor, Too long had they been bewitched with dreams of national pride, and could not take their stand resolutely and lovingly by the side of their oppressed fellow men. Too long had they been intoxicated with their anti-demo- cratic theories of political economy, and could not subor- dinate them to the demands of inalienable human rights. Too long had they idolized their dead ancestors and could not practically worship their living God. Too long had their idle veneration of ancient institutions and forms been permitted to eat out and displace the spirit in which all political institutions should be conceived and administer- 64 DEMOCRACY OF CfnU^TIANITT. eel. Too long had they relinquished their share of public responsibilities and knew not how to resume them. The democratic principle of human equality and equity had been supplanted in Egypt by the opposite principle of aris- tocracy, monopoly, class legislation, and injustice. And God said, " I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against all the gods [or rulersj of Egypt 1 will execute judgment: 1 am the Lord." This prediction was fulfilled, and the Hebrews fled " And the Egyptians pur- sued and went after them into the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen." * * * * * "And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned in his strength, when the morning appeared, and the Egyptians fled against it, and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea."^ — Gen. xiv. It is upon the principle of democratic equality, most assuredly, and upon no rival principle, that we can vindi- cate the justice of God in this severe retribution, as at- tested in the Christian records. If land monopolies, if subsidized priesthoods, if all-con- trolling and overshadowing dynasties, if the abdication of civil government by the masses of the people, if magnificent and costly -works of national aggrandizement under govern- mental supervision and by over-tasked laboi*, if class legislations, if taxes grievous to be borne, imposed upon certain classes, while others are comparatively exempted, if these and the like of them are in accordance with the mind and will of our Great Father — nay, if He does not loathe and abominate them with all the infinite powers of His great heart; if, in the reason and nature of things there be not a good and solid ground for His abhorrence of them, and if it were not of vast and unspeakable importance to the vital interests of His moral government over men, to the Avelfare of human beings on the earth to the end of time, and the right moulding of their characters for eternity, hat God should signally manifest His displeasure on account of DEMOCKAfV OF CHKlSTiANlTY. 65 t liem, in the very infancy of civilization and as a beacon to all coming generations and future nations of the earth, then per- haps, may the Bible record of the miraculous plagues of Egypt bo thought incredible, or without any apparent and adequate moral cause. But if the opposite of all this be the truth, if the principle and the spirit of democratic equality and common brotherhood be essential characteristics of the religion revealed and insisted upon in the Scriptures, if no progress in the re- demption and elevation of our lapsed race could be made with- out the restoration of this principle and the prevalence of this spirit, then it is not difficult to see and appreciate the necessi- ty and importance of just such a manifestation of retributive justice as is furnished by the inspired history of the Hebrews in Egypt. It is just what we might reasonably expect, if the second table of the divine law rests upon the basis of inaliena- ble human rights. And this view may furnish a commentary on the devotional poetry of the Hebrews composed on this thrilling occasion, and in after ages, wherein the terrible scenes of the Egyptian over- throw are dwelt upon in a strain of triumph and adoration that may well inspire profound awe, and that sometimes perplexes and overwhelms sensitive and delicate minds. " Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song mito the Lord, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath tri- umphed gloriousl}^ ; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea." '•• * ^^ " And Miriam, the proph- etess, the daughter of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously ; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea." — Ex. xv. Centuries afterwards, the strain was resumed by the sweet Psalmist of Israel, " give thanks unto the Lord for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever." '•' '- * * '^ " To him that stretched out the earth above the waters for his mercy endureth forever; to him that made great lights, for his mercy endureth forever; the sun to rule by da}^ for his mercy endureth forever; the moon and stars to rule by night, for his mercy endureth forever. To him that smote Egypt in their 66 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. first-born, for his mercy endureth forever, and brought out Israel from among them, for his mercy endureth forever. With a high hand and an outstretched arm, for his mercy endureth forever. To him which divided the Red Sea into parts, for his mercy endureth forever; and made Israel to pass through the midst of it, for his mercy endureth forever; but overthrew Pharaoh and his hosts in the Red Sea, for his mercy endureth forever." — Ps. cxxxvi. Is it objected to these poems that they breathe the spirit of ancient barbarism and revenge? Or is it inexplicable that meek-eyed "mevcy^' as Avell as inflexible justice is recognized as characterizing the divine conduct on the memorable occa- sion the song celebrates ? To this objection let it be answered that the song breathes no spirit of barbarism or of malice, but of the deepest and ho- liest love to the common brotherhood of man. And let the enigma find its solution in a remembrance of the " mere?/" to all the future nations and generations of mankind, as well as to the Hebrews, that was wrapped up in that terrible over- throw of the incorrigible and self-ruined Egyptians. Until men repudiate all ideas of inalienable human rights and of corres- ponding penal law for the protection of them, let all who prize liberty and abhor oppression devoutly join with the inspired Hebrew poets in celebrating Jehovah's own triumphant vindi- cation of human freedom, his indignation against oppression. While men love liberty as they love the light, let their grati- tude for the preservation of the former be expressed in the same sacred verse that expresses their gratitude for the lumi- naries of heaven that mve them the latter ; a sono- that well deserves its unfading immortality, as the grand " Marseillois'* of universal humanity and freedom, for all ages, breathing no threats of revengeful slaughter, but reverently celebrating the merciful judgments of Him who has said — '' Vengeance is mine — I will repay." In remembrance of antedeluvian violence and of the merci- ful deluge that interrupted and ended it — in reaicrabrance of what universal history reveals to us of the nature and charac- ter of man and of the wrongs hiuuauity bufters, notwithstand- UEMOCRACV UF CHlUaTlAN IIY. ij i ing all tlie restraints and warnings interposed by divine retri- butions, let us ponder more deeply than we have been wont to do, the story of Egypt, and say whether we should probably liave had an endurable and a habitable world of mercy and of probation, to-day, but for the scenes recorded in the exodus of the Hebrews, and celebrated in the son c>-s of Moses, of Miriam, and of David. Let it be borne in mind that the scene of these astonishing events lies far back, on the historic canvass, before even one of the so-called ancient republics had been founded. Let it be remembered that the bards who sang the Eoyptian overthrow had thrilled the nations with their songs of victorious freedom, and made the tyrants of antiquity to tremble upon their thrones for ao'es before Homer or Heroditus were born, or Lvcuro-us or Solon had appeared. Let the philosophical student of history consider all this, and then say whether it be extrava- gant to trace all the civil and religious liberty that men have ever enjoyed since the exodus from Egypt, to the moral influ- ences associated, directly or more remotely, with that wonder- ful story. Who can tell whether the idea of equal and inalien- able human rights could have been otherwise restored or pre- served to mankind than by such a series of miraculous and overwhelming judgments as should convince the w^orld, then sunk in the grossest forms of idolatry, that there was one only living and true God, the common Creator of all men, who regarded impartially the equal rights of all, and would never permit them to be violated with impunity ? That impression once produced and perpetuated by the bards and the historians of antiquity, might furnish a key to the providential government of God over the nations, in all fu- ture time, though less signally marked by the miraculous, the mysterious, and the terrible. Such a providential control once recognized, could, thenceforward, be readily traced, and refer- red to the regular operation of moral laws engraven by the Creator upon man's social being, and running parallel to his existence. Such, if we mistake not, is the use actually made of these wonderful events, by the succeeding writers of the 08 DK.iOCKACV Oi' CniSTIA^-iXy. Scriptures. The histories of Israel and Judah in connexion with those of the surrounding nations, the commentaries upon these histories furnished by the predictions, tlie warnings, the admonitions, the denunciations of the inspired prophets, all run in the same direction vvith the plagues and the ovrethrow of Egypt, and are sometimes expressly coupled with it, with the overthrow of the cities of the plain by fire, and of the old world by the deluge. In all these, the great sin of oppression, es- pecially oi poiitical oppression is kept prominent, is ranked with idol worship and the grossest forms of sin, and Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews, the God of all the earth, is everywhere represented as inspecting, superintending, overruling and con- trolling all the nations of the earth, with a view to the punishment of pohtical as well as individual ineqnahty, iniquity, and injustice. One farther recognition of the democratic principle in the divine dealings with the Egyptians is of too much importance to be passed over without particular notice. The oppression of of the Hebrews, as we have said, was apolitical oppression. It was a goverraental wrong, not the injury of the Hebrews or of individuals of them by individual Egyptians, or by mere pred- atory and irregular hordes or assemblages of them. It was by edict of the reigning monarch, in the form recognized as con- stituting valid la\v. It was in harmony with the constitutional usages and ancient arrangements of the empire, and grew out of them in the most natural manner, fortifying itself, at every step, no doubt, with all the analogies and precedents furnished by the previous history. It v>-as, moreover, a measure of poli- tical econoni}^, sanctioned by the wisest statesmen and tacitly approved by the authorized priesthood and princes of the na- tion. How comes it to pass, then, that vre find the punishment of this political iniquity visited, not upon the reigning monarch alone with his councillors, princes, and priesthood, but likewise upon the masses of the Egyptian people 1 Since miraculous retributions were employed^ in whicli God made a signal dis- tinction between the Hebrews and their oppressors, why was it that no similar discrimination was made between the govern- ment of Egypt and the people f UEMOCKACV OF CIIKISTIANITV. 69 The people ^Ycre the victims, to some extent, of similar op- pressions themselves. The reigning monarch and his comicil- lors did noU recognize in the Egyptian people, any of the ele - ments of political power. The people themselves made no such pretensions. The constitutional usages of their country accor- ded to them nothing of the kind. They had no voice in the selection of their rulers, nor in the framing of their edicts. Nor is it probable that one in a thousand of them ever thought of it as injury that they were debarred from such privileges. Lille other besotted sensualists and idolaters, who had lost the knowledge of the Common Father and the equal brotherh jod of mankind, their ''leeks, and onions, and flesh-pots" amply satis- tied them, and they felt it no particular hardship to resign the responsibilities of civil government to those who claimed and exercised the exclusive monopoly of them. No modern declar- ations of inalienable human rights and of the social duties wrapped up in them, had ever fallen upon their dull ears. No gleams of the democratic principle either from the New Testament or the Old, had ever greeted their eyes ; no pen of sage or historian, no voice of seer or song of bard had ever conveyed to them the story of the lied Sea, still in the womb of the future. Why, then, were the masses of Egypt doomed for political crime ? On what principle, by what theory, what fundamental law of po- litical science was the divine procedure based, when '' at mid- night, God smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat upon his throne unto the first born of the captive that was in the dungeon ; ''' * and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not an house Avhere there was not one dead?"— J^o:. xii. 29, 30. What did God teach by all this? Was it the doctrine then prevalent in Egypt, and which needed no miracle nor retribu- tion for its propogation— the doctrine that in most heathen and anti-Christian nations is practically recognized still— the doctrmc that the responsibilities of civil government are committed only to a particular caste, to a favored race, to a royal family, to a select few ? If God had considered the reigning dynasty of Egypt the 70 DEMOCKACV OF OHRISTIANITV. legitimate government, in an absolute sense, so that the rest of the nation were not responsible for their acts, can it be credible that in a miraculous retribution (where '■' the laws of nature " could not be adverted to as the cause) a retribution designed to point out and punivsh political wickedness, for a warning to all nations and ages, He would so signally have punished the masses of the people w^ith their rulers ? Or if instead of recognizing the reigning dynasty as the le- gitimate government, God had accounted, as some do, the wisest and best of the nation, more or less, or however obscure, as constituting exclusively the civil governors of the nation, and bound to exercise their high powers in the punishment of crime, why did He not arraign them for their delinquincy of service, instead of proceeding to an indiscriminate punishment of the masses ? Does God punish for political offences those to whom He has committed no political responsibilities — no polit- ical authority or power ? The truth seems to be that God did regard and treat the •people of Egypt as constituting, in truth and in reaht}', the government of Egypt. The numerical and physical power was theirs. The intellectual power, too, was theirs, if they had only been disposed to wield it, as the}^ ought to have done. God had given them thpir rational and social natures, and placed them together in a community. Relations were thus created, and duties growing out of these relations which none but themselves could discharge. Their Pharaohs might assume and promise to dis- charge them, and the people wilHng enough to transfer their duties to others, might "love to have it so." But God would have them know that He held them responsible, nevertheless. Their own Avaihng shrieks at midnight should proclaim it to themselves and to all nations, to tlie end of time, since nothing- short of this process could instruct them, and rouse to a sense of their true dignity and high destiny the masses of mankind. In perfect keeping with this lesson are the subsequent teach- ings of the Bible, in its history, its poetry, its predictions, its promises, its denunciations, its wai-nings. All these are pre- eminently saturated \\\\Xi political instruction and admonition: DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITV. i 1 all these are addressed to the people at large, ^xv^rvoiio^^dezi few. The people, the nation, and the government are every where so connected and identified that the mass of the people are, all along, held responsible for the acts of the government, andthreaten°ed with punishment for national and political crimes. Moses, in his Deuteronomy, and the principal prophets m the books bearing their names, are full of exemplifications in pomt, and to present the evidence would be to transcribe a large por- tion of their writings. AN EXPLANATION. ^ The view we have now taken of the history of the Hebrews in Egypt, is so different from any thing found in the commonly approved commentaries on that event, that some may regard it with distrust, as conflicting with the accounts generally given (and which appear rational and important) of the great end God had in view in those remarkable transactions. The writer, however, is not conscious of any discrepancy between his state- ments and those commonly received. What he has said of the divine purpose in those events, he offers not as displacing the instructions commonly derived from that portion of Scripture, but in addition to them. He finds no difficulty in admitting the generally received commentaries to be mainly correct and im- portant so far as they go, but thinks it more than possible that, here and elsewhere, the vast treasures of divine knowledge contained in the Scriptures are very far from having been^ ex- hausted, and that much more'instruction is yet to be derived from them. A late writer who has been justly received with favor by the religious public * has given a new view, in some respects, of the entire history of the Hebrews and of their deliverance from Eoypt; and yet there is little or nothing in his view that essen- tially conflicts with or disparages the commentators that had preceded him. He only throws new gleams of light over the canvass, and directs attention to particulars that had escaped the notice of his predecessor «i. It is possible, too, that he lias ♦ The author of " Philosophy of t -le Plan oi Salvation." '''^ I3EM0CRACY Of CIlKlSTlAKlTr. left work for more than one writer who may survey the ^ame ground over agam after him. On the shore of such a vast ocean of truth as is presented in the Bible, there need be no fear that any one explorer will basket up all the rich shells nor increduhty when a new adventurer is bold to exhibit a fresh collection of them. If it be said that God punished the Egyptians for their treat- ment o.H,. chosen people, and a« a means of their deliverance out of bondage, the statement is true, but it does not displace the more general statement that He punished them for their viola- tions of mahenable human rights and as a warning to oppress- ors mall ag^s, thus vindicating the fundamental principles of equality and human freedom. The Hebrews were God's cho sen people, not for their own superior goodness, as He often re- minded them, but on account of His promise to Abraham; and ha prom,.-e was that in him all the nadonsofthe earth should be blessed. To tins promise the ,vhole process of Hebrew irannng was conformed, and their history is instructive not to them alone, but to the whole world. The writer just now alluded to considers the miracles and p agues of igypt as directed, specincally and signallv, against Aoobectsof.hen- idolatroMs veneration-the serp'ents the me, the hsh, the fly-god, their altars of worship, tLirlt* their god Serapis who was supposed to protect them fr ,m lo- custs, and their other false gods. He supposes that these mira- cles were necessary to restore to the heathen mind the idea of the power and e.xistence of the one only true God, as well as to recall the attention, the reverence, and the affectionate obedi- ence of the Hebrews to the God of their fathers, now manifest- ing Hmself as their Dehvercn, and demonstrating His infinite laSeX: ' ^"""■^"""' "'^'^"'"-^ -'^-'^ g-«d» All this, and much more whicli ih^ ^w.'f „ edwithwhatothere..positors.:::iVllS^:S~ not a whit from the credibility or the importance of wtt w lave been attempting to cvhibit in theprecedingpa.es On Uieotherhandthemorecomprehensive,f„!,,andpr:fu,idare°" DEMOCRACr OF CllKISTIAXiy. conceptions of the grand work of religious culture, for the benefit of all nations, Avrapped up in the dealings of God with the Egyptians, the more of significancy and solemnity shall we be prepared to give to each particular part of the lesson that goes to make up the great whole. Our argument seeks to establish the unity of the true religion, as revealed in the Bible, with the democratic principles of equality and freedom. And if we find these principles taught with great distinctness and emphasis, as we think we do, in the tragedy of Egypt, where so many other great truths of religion are taught also, our argument is the more strongly confirmed. The manifold wisdom and power of C4od are clearly seen, when so many important truths are taught by a single stroke of His hand. And the Book that records and celebrates His mighty deeds, unfolding such rich and varied lessonsof instruction, may well be confidingly received as of divine origin. Its credentials are within itself, and will be read by those who use the volume for the high purposes for which it was given, the evidence becoming brighter and brighter with every new vein of wisdom it yields to us. CHAPTER VL THE HEBREW COMMONWEALTH— THE INSTITUTIONS 01-" MOSES. THE MATERIALS. The bondage and the deliverance of the Hebrews were no fortuitous or Isolated events. They Avere appointed of God, and were necessary steps in the process of the training of that remarkable people, set apart for the prospective and ultimate instruction of the whole family of man, in all that pertains to their rational and immortal natures, their rehgion, their morals, their social relations, their duties, their rights, their political condition in the present life, their character and destiny m the life to come. The Messiah, the anointed of God, the desire of "74 DEMOCKACi^ OF CHRISTIANITY. all nations, the Prince of Peace, the Councillor, the King of kings and Lord of lords, was to appear among them, and for His advent the nation must needs be prepared by previous centuries of progressive instruction and elevation. The bondage in Egypt and the sojourn in the wilderness, were necessary steps in this course of training, for God does nothing in vain, nor does He capriciously afflict the children of men. The human family had again become degraded and brutish, superstitious and servile. They worshipped the emblems and personifications of vileness, of impurity, of injustice, and became assimulated to the objects of their worship.* The bond of hu- man brotherhood was obscured if not broken. The masses, everywhere, were the victims of oppression, and had lost all knowledge or remembrance of their long lost dignity and rights. Something must needs be done, to restore at least, some portion of the great family of man to a knowledge of their Com- mon Father, to a knowledge and recognition of their equal brotherhood, to a knowledge of their rights, that beino- thus restored, they might become the medium of divine influences and appliances for the ultimate elevation of all the tribes and kindreds of the earth, without subjecting every kino-dom and tribe to the same process, and enacting the tragedy of Eoypt over ao-ain, in each case. What could be done for such objects ? The Bible record informs us what was done. The call of Abraham and the iso- lation of his descendants, was one step of the process. The bondage in Egypt was another, the deliverance by miraculous retributions was another, the sojourn in the wilderness was another, and so on, till new instructions, new laws, new institu- tions, new forms of worship, and new modes of civil govern- ment placed them in a new and vastly improved position and condition, distinguishing them from all the rest of the world. * Tiie writer ficknovvledi^es his inJobtedness to the author of '« The Piiilosophy of tlie Plan of SalvalioiV for some of the ideas that have given shape t) this p^ratrraph, though the main thought was in his mind, and thi.^ part of the book in progress, before he chanced to meet with that interesting work. DEMOCRACY OF CIIRISXIANITY. /O In tke religious training they thus received, there was in- voh^ed, all along, a political training. This fact is visible on the face of the record, and it teaches us that the religion of the ]3ible has much to do with politics, as it must needs do, if it includes morals, and if morality is to be recognized in our po- litical duties and relations. The bondao-e in Egypt, though in some respects disadvan- tageous to the Hebrews, as exposing them to the influences of heathenism, and tending to make them servile (disadvantages to be overcome afterwards, by their deliverance and subsequent training) was calculated, nevertheless, to impress many salutary lessons upon them, Avhich in no other way that we know of, could have been so effectively taught them. The value of the most precious blessings is learned only, in many cases, by the loss of them, and the most aggravating circumstances are some- times requisite, to make the loss felt, as it should be. The blessing of civil and religious liberty is no exception to these remarks. We know of nations to whom this precious gift is committed and who seem to form no just estimate of its value. And we know of other nations deprived of the prccisus boon, who never seem to miss it, or to manifest any ardent aspira- tions for the enjoyment of it. Had the burthens of the He- brews been less grievous, had their physical and social condi- tion been less unendurable, their "leeks, and onions, and flesh- pots," might have made them content where they Avere, with- out the desire or even the conception of any nobler or more dio-nified position in the scale of intellectual and moral being. Their deliverance and freedom in the contrast with their gall- ino- bondage, (so often adverted to by their deliverer in his messao-e to them) was well adapted to quicken their concep- tions of the glory and dignity of being free men, the ignominy and shame of being servile. Their sore afflictions and the deep injuries they had receiv- ed from the Egyptians, in connexion with the signal judgments of Heaven on their oppressors, and their own miraculous eacape fromthenv, were all well calculated not only to wean them from the idolatries of the Egyptians, to impress them with the in- ^6 DEMOCKACi- OF C111116T1AMTV. finite majesty and power of the God of their fathers, .who had thus triumphed over their oppressors, and to inspire them with sentiments of love and gratitude towards Him for the blessings of restored freedom — but in all this process, there was a strong tendency to cement them closely together, to make them one people, to bind them in one bundle by the strong cords of mutual sympathy, common sufferings, common fears, common hopes, common dangers, common deliverances, and common triumphs. The author before alluded to, takes notice of this, and supposes that the divine purpose in this providential ar- rangement was to make that wonderful people so completely one, that no political vicissitudes, thenceforward, should so sever them, as to annihilate their national existence, a result actually witnessed, to the present day, even in their dispersion, and without a parallel in the world's histoiy. Now, in all this, what have we but another and an indelible impression upon that nation, of the original fact of a common brotherhood, equality, and unity, so branded into them by the fires of affliction as never to be effaced ? This preserves to us, down to our nineteenth century of the Christian era, an unbro- ken and well authenticated line of succession from Abraham nay, from Noah — from Adam, reaching even to the present hour, and attesting the oneness, not only of the Hebrews, but of the* human race, connected as all nations are, by the records of that same people, with the descendants of Noah, the known and acknowledged ancestor of the Hebrews; insomuch that their own affinity with the Gentiles (who were to be blessed in their own Abraham) is certified by their own boasted pedigree, and thus the Jewlsk brotherhood, so effectually impressed^ so astonishingly preserved, becomes, in the full manifestation of their own promised Messiah, the bond of the brotherhood of the whole race. The idea of brotherhood thus impressed upon the Hebrews, along with the other essential ideas of the true religion, is, with them, transmitted and transferred to all na- tions, and the middle wall of partition between Jews and Gen- tiles, having answered its end in this and other important i-espects, is ultimately broken down, and the whole world becomes one' DEMOCR.^r OF CllPvlSTlAKITY. i i Tims Avc sec how all the essential ideas involved in liie democratic principle vrere impressively taught to the Hebrews, and, as far as practicable, restored to them, and actually wrought into their national character to the same extent that the other essential religious ideas were wrought into them ; furthermore, that this was affected by the same divine meth- ods, and to the same magnificent end, namely, the elevation, first, of a great nation, and ultimately, of the entire family of man — to the dignity of holiness and freedom. The training to which the Hebrews were subjected in the wilderness, w^as evidently marked out by the same sublime pur- pose and subordinated to the same grand end. And among other important lessons taught them in that tedious and trying sojourn were those best fitted to prepare them for the use and enjoyment of their rights as free men. All their religious train- ing contributed indeed, among other things, to that end, but some incidents seem particularly and especially adapted to the purpose. The peculiar vices of a servile and degraded people needed peculiar discipline, and that discipline w^as supplied. Overtasked though they had been, yet they had contracted an ignoble and enslaving appetite for the luxuries of their op-. jDressors, altogether unbefitting a nation of hardy, self-denying, and self-controlled freemen, as they Avere now invited and des- tined to become. The brutal lusts as well as the abominable idolatries of their house of bondage were to be crucified or they could never rise from the low condition of sensuality in which the enjoyments of the table constituted their ideal of the supreme good, to the rank of an intellectual and spiritual- ized community, conversant with the great principles of reli- gion and ethics that must lie at th3 basis of a virtuous and well- regulated commonwealth, in the exercise of liberty because in subjection to law. Whoever understands human physiology, the connexion be- tween the body and the mind, between both and the moral manif^estations, between these latter and the miintenancc of civil and political freedom, need be in no doubt in respect to the divine goodness and wisdom displayed in the dietetic re^i- 78 DEMOCRACY OK CHRISTIAN IT Y. men of the Hebrews in the wilderness and the final result of tlie discipline, notwithstanding their struggles against it, and tiie severe punishments they incurre-d. Bearing in mind that God intended them to become the first nation of freemen, the depositaries of incipient and embryo democratic institutions to be perfected in due time, aixl transmitted to all the nations of the earth, the story becomes, to the philosophic mind, full of meaning: — the manna — the quails — the reproof of their repi- nings— when " He gave them their request, but sent leanness unto their souls." All this was just what infinite wisdom and mercy had to do, of course, if such an end were to be accom- plished, and if the laws of human nature, in the meantime, were to be unrepealed. This is only saying that a thing can- not be accomphshed, and yet left unaccomplished, at the same time. If, instead of tracing the growth and progress of the princi- ple of democracy, under these providential dealings, w^e were tracing the progress of the manifestation and development of a spiritual religion, during the same period of history, and in the enacting of the same scenes, we should be led to make very similar observations. And this shows the close connexion be- tween the principle of democracy and a spiritual religion, both of which, under the good providence of God, have to be nur- tured and preserved by one and the same process, " not joyous but grievous," for a season, to those who are placed under the discipline. Like every other community in a state of transition from ser- vihty to freedom, and comprehending but imperfectly the new state of things into which they were about to be introduced, the Hebrews in the wilderness, at intervals, exhibited frightful manifestations of anarchy, revolt, impatience with the just re- straints of good government, insubordination to law, and even a disposition to relinquish the prospects before them, and re- turn back again into bondage. On one occasion indeed, even before the exodus from Egypt, while fearing that the interpo- sition of Moses on their behalf would prove unavailing and only render their condition the more intolerable, (which for a DKMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY^. '79 time, appeared to be the prospect) they loaded their benefactor with reproaches, and entreated him to remit his exertions. But all this did not change the purpose of Moses or of God, to make of them a free people, even though it became necessary to wait for another and a better trained generation to come on the stage of action, before the benevolent design could be fully accomplislied. In all this we have God's answer to objections made against democracy, in later times, on account of similar manifestations of disorder. And we have His ovfu divine example, superadd- ed to that of Moses, for the^encouragement of those who labor, against similar obstacles, to obtain the same objects, with no present rewards but ingratitude, and little hopes of succeed- ing, except with posterity. THE FABRIC. Having thus traced the process by which God provided ma- terials for the Hebrew commonwealth, in a race rescued from bondage, we come now to witness the setting up of the fabric, to nolice the principle and mode of organization, the institu- tions, the polity, and the workings of the system. We must be careful not to confound the Hebrew commonwealth, as de- scribed in the institutions of Moses, and as established by di- vine wisdom, with the mal- administrations and abuses that sprang up through human infirmity or wickedness, under them ; nor yet with the arrangements and usages of the kingly dy- nasties by which the Hebrew commonwealth was, after a time, subverted, and the Mosaic economy, to a great extent, superse- ded, encroached upon, disarranged, or reduced to a dead let- ter. And in analyzing the Mosaic economy we must distin- guish, carefully, between the essential and the incidental, the fundamental and the circumstantial, the permanent and the temporary, the universal and the peculiar ;— between the prin- ciple, and the particular form it may assume. The Mosaic economy, in one of its aspects, was an instj-u- mcntality, to be employed only for a season, and then laid a^^idc. It was a scaffolding to be used in the erection <.)f an inner and more permanent temple, to be taken down when that ^0 DEMOCKACY OF CIlKISTIAiNlTV. temple should have been reared. It was a winter house for deli- cate plants, to be removed on the opening of the spring. It was one of a series of steps in a flight of stairs, leading upwlrd, over which mankind were to^pass, in ascending to their original and long lost level. It was a system of types, sjmbols, hieroglyph- ics, and pictures, for the use of those who had not yet learned letters. These purposes accomphshed, its mission in these par- ticulars was fulfilled. In the transient of that economy was included, moreover, whatevei of local or chronological pecu- liarity might mark that region or period demanding a cor- responding conformation of polity.' But all this impHes that there was a principle lying at the bottom of these arrangements as a whole, and shadowed forth or indicated by them, as permanent as the objects they were de- signed to subserve, and partaking of the same character. This principle could not fail to manifest itself; otherwise the in- tended lesson could not thus have been taught, and there would have been no correspondency between between the instrumen- tality and the object. The institutions of Moses are doubtless to be expounded and understood in the light of the principles and objects known to have entered vitally into the establishment of them. Whatever may appear to be anomalous will be hkely to be found in the category of the incidental, the circumstantial, the temporar}^ the peculiar. And by the same rule whatever, in the light of the New aVstament dispensation, is known to have been "^ibro- gated, is thereby ascertained to have belonged to the circum- stantial and peculiar, and is not to be taken into the categoryof the arrangements that were designed to be permanent oi^adap- ted to universal imitation. These obvious rules, if applied, will enable us, if we mistake not, to dispose readily and happily of whatever in the Mosaic arrangements mayappear, at first sight, to conflict with the principle of democracy, so conspicuous'' in the.incipient measures leading to the erection of the Hebrew Commonwealth. "DIVINE KlGilT OF KINGS?" Moses was specially and miraculously designed and commis- nEMOCRArV OF r-HRTSTIAXITY. 81 sioned by God, to act as the chief magistrate of the He- brews, but he must needs present to the people the appro- priate evidences of the fact, before their obedience could, on any such grounds, be demanded. This was well un- derstood by Moses, as appears from^what he said to God on receiving his commission, and from the direction which God accordingly gave him to work special mira- cles in their presence, for that end. (See Ex. iv. 1-9.) To- wards the close of the same chapter we have an account of the appointed interview between Moses and the people, who were convened for that special purpose, Aaron, by divine appointment, acting on his behalf, on that occasion, Moses having modestly begged to be excused from thus urging his own claim to authority over them. " And Aaron spake all the words which the Lord had spoken unto Moses, [rehearsing the divine commission] and did the signs in the sight of the people. And the people believed, and when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel, and that he had looked upon their affliction, then they bov/ed their heads and worship- ped."— ^^ 30-31. This was equivalent to their own free choice of jMoses as their chief magistrate, and would have been so regard- ed in any thorough democracy under heaven. All this was in Egypt, before Moses laid any commands upon the Hebrews, or undertook to transact any business on their behalf, at the court of Pharaoh. Though his authority, in this case, was direct from God, and though the knowl- edge of that fact had been miraculously communicated to him, yet, by God's own direction, as it would seem, the voluntary concurrence of the people was thus to be se- cured : — this was a part of the divine plan of operation, not that their consent was necessary (in a case where the good pleasure of God had been thus signified) to the com- pleteness of the authority, but because, perhaps, God would not thus interpose for their deliverance without their free co-operation, (and they were not forced out of 82 DEMOCRACY OF CimiSTIANITV. Egypt) nnd because, perhaps, God would, from the be- ginr.ino:, ticcustom them to the choice of their own rulers. When those who claim a divine right to rule over their brethren will produce the credentials that Moses did, when, instead of enforcing their claims by fire and sword, they will imitate the meekness of Moses, leave it for oth- ers to urge peacefully their claims, and then wait for the expressed "belief" and grateful recognition of their brethren, before they issue their edicts, then it will be in time for them to refer to Moses as a precedent for "the divine right of kings." ^ntil then, there will be no per- tinency in the citation of the precedent. And it may not be greatly out of place to add, here, that the story of Mo- ses and the triumphant Hebrews, furnishes no precedent for bloody revolutions to establish national freedom. Not a sword was drawn by them against the Egyptians, and the conquest of Canaan ^by direct and specific command for that purpose, is rather a denial than a confirmation of the right to engage in su^h an enterprise without such a command. CHOICE OF OFFICERS BY THE PEOPLE THEIR QUALIFICATIONS. The first record of the appointment of civil ofHcers under Moses, is found in Exodus, Chapter xvili. Jeth- ro, the father-in-law of Moses, had remonstrated with him for wearing out his life in the decision of petty controversies among the people. He advised the appoint- ment of ofHceis or judges to decide ordinary causes, re- serving only the more difficult for the hearing of Moses, who should also instruct them in the ordinances and laws wherein they should walk. He said : " Thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness, and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hun- dreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. If thou shalt do this thing as God commanded thee so, then thou shalt be able to endure, and all this people shall also go to their place in peace." DEMOCRAOY OF CHRISTIANITY. 83 As Jethro advised this measure on condition that God should so direct, we may be assured that Moses obtained divine direction in this matter, as he did afterwards in the appointment of the seventy elders. (Numbers xi. 14, 16.) The qualifications of rulers here insisted onfurnish a key to the work to be performed. It was the execution of justice between man and man. It needed a sound mind and high moral qualities. The subtleties of modern juris- prudence, the arts of so called political economy, as now commonly understood, would not be needed, and were not to be provided for. " So Moses cliose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. And they judged the people at all seasons, the hard causes they brought unto Moses, but every small matter they judged themselves." — v. 2G, 27. Here, perhaps, it wiil be thought that Moses made these appointments without the voice of the people. But upon examination this will appear to be as unfounded as the notion that Timothy and Titus ordained Christian elders or bishops without the election of the common brother- hood. In the first chapter of Deuteronomy, Moses rehear- ses over again the same story, w^th additional particulars. In the former account the advice of his father-in-law had been mentioned. But here it is further stated that Moses laid the matter before the people, and said : " How can I myself alone bear your cumbrance, and your burden, and your strife. Take ye wise men, and un- derstanding, and known among yonr tribes, and I will make them rulers over you. And ye answered me and said, The thing which thou hast spoken is good for us to do.''—?;. 12-14. He then repeats the statement of his appointing the offi- cers and giving them a charge to judge righteously the causes that should come before them. 84 DEMOCRACY OF CIIR ISTM XITV. CHAPTER VII. KLEMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. GENERAL SUFFRAGE THE JUDICIARY. From the preceding account it appears that the people' were recognized as constituting the state — the eJements of the commonwealth. Divinely appointed as was Moses, with the cloudy fiery pillar by night and by day for his ensign, and receiving frequent if not daily communica- tions and directions immediately and miraculously from God, he would do nothing in so important a matter as the establishment of a judiciary system without the concur- rence of the people. And, not to a few select delegates, but, as it would seem, to the vast assembly of the people, en masse, would he propound the matter, and receive their answer. 0?i them too, did he put the task of making the selection from among themselves, of suitable persons whom he might commision, and instruct in the duties of their office. And thus the foundation stone of the Hebrew common- wealth was Wid, first, in the institution of a regular judi- ciary, by the people, so minute in its subdivisions that every ten citizens had the election of their magistrate, to determine causes without needlessly going farther, thence extending upwards to judges of fifties, of hundreds, and thousands. Second, in the actual choice of these officers by the people, Chronologically, as well as in the nature of things, this was the first step taken in the regular organization of a civil government for the Hebrews, and it was done hy themselves, on the recommendation of Jethro and Moses and with the approbation and direction of God. This was before the giving of the law at Mount Sinai, andthejudges could have had no legislation to guide them^ but only the "common law" to "judge righteously," as repeated in DEMOGKACY OF CHKiaXlAMlV. 85 the charge of Moses. This arrangement was in strict harmony with the divine charter of civil government to " Noah and his sons," which Moses as the divinely inspired penman of that history must have understood. And after the giving of the law at Mount Sinai, Moses repeats in substance the arrangement above described, among '• the statutes and judgments which [says he, Deut. Chap. xii. 1,] ye shall observe and do, in the land which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the day s that ye live upon the earth." These are his words : "Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee, throughout thy tribes, and. they shall judge the people with just judg- ment.'' — Dciit. xvi. 18. Here, then, we have the basis of a permanent judiciary system for the Hebrew commonwealth, as established by the code of Moses. It provides for a judge in every town, village, or city. The " gates " at the entrance of the sev- eral towns were places of public resort, where the public business was transactod. There their judicial proceedings were to be held, each locality furnishing its own judge elected directly by the people. The organization and powers of the New England town- ships, originating in the strict church independency and corresponding political activities of the early puritans, has justly been celebrated by De Tocqueville and other saga- cious writers, as the germe, the chief safe-guard and most perfect exemplification of "Democracy in Americaj " but it falls short, in some particulars, of coming up to the sim- ple democracy of the Hebrew localities, where the people chose all their judges or magistrates without any appoint ing power in a higher legislative body at a distance.* The minute subdivision into hundreds, fifties, and tens must have distributed the judiciary power among the mass of the people, beyond and other known precedent. *^ i^erh-iiiS the NtHv York to-.vnships uniler tiie new ;j::i(f consLituliun, approximate nearly to the Hebrew modd, though lo) m.jch busine« * still monopolized by lUc county towns. 5 86 DEMOCRACY OF OHRISTIAxMTY. By its workings, as naturally conceived, a controversy between two citizens both belonging to the same band of ten, would come before the ruler or magistrate of that ten. If the litigants be- longed to two contiguous bands of ten, their cause would go before their judge of fifty — if to two contiguous fifties, it would go before the judge of their hundred — if to two contiguous hundreds, it would go before the judge of their thousand. In this way most controversies would be decided at the very doors of the litigants, without needless journeyings, and with little or no expense ; the offices thus divided among the people precluding the idea of their yielding pecuniary profit, the great source of judiciary corruption. Professional lawyers, salaried judges, and court fees, among the Hebrews, if they retained the system of Jethro, must have been phrases almost or quite unknown. Pro- ficients in the modern science of jurisprudence may smile at the idea of the workings of such a system. We do not say that it is obligatory on every or on any community to to trj^ the experiment of its precise and literal repetition in the present age of the world; but we do say that the precedent is sufficiently sacred and venerable to protect it from Christian ridicule, that the principle involved is deserving of reverent regard, and the practice of that principle in some form more perfect and simple than any now in use, would probably result in the rectification of many abuses novv^ felt, but almost despairingly endured. Before dismissing this part of the record we can not forbear to remark upon the circumstances in which this universal suf- frage and almost general participancy in the magistracy were introduced. A people degraded by centuries of bondage and but recently escaped — a people not thoroughly cured of the idolatries of heathenism and the impurities of poligamy — a people of whom their inspired legislator and historian testifies that they were a stiff-necked and rebellious people, impatient of salutary re- straints — a people by no means proficients in literature and science — a people whose habits, whose residence, whose avoca- tions, whose institutions, civil and ecclesiastical, were {at the beginning of this experiment) in an unformed and unsettled state — such a people, according to the common modes of think- DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 87 ing, would be in rather an unpromising condition for so radical and hazardous a democratic experiment. Very few even among our democratic civilians, perhaps, would venture to rec- ommend what was recommended by Jethro, and adopted by Moses, under the divine direction. We are not author- ized by the record to say that it worked as well as could have been desired. Yet the Divine Wisdom that guided the progress of that people, appears to have sanctioned and commanded the experiment. Instead of interposing a veto upon it, as though the people must be further pre- pared, before they could be entrusted with such respon- sibilities, the divine economy seems to have been to throw the responsibilities upon them, in the first place, that in the effort for meeting them they might gradually become better qualified. It was evidently an important step in the course of their moral and political training, that could not well be spared. The civil code promulgated at Sinai was soon after committed to the people, as thus organized and acting, for theii' administration, and thus they were taught " the statutes and the judgments" of the Lord God of their fathers, who had delivered them from bondage. A portion of the Book of Deuteronomy is occupied by Mo- ses with directions to the people., \\o\v \o administer as well how to ohey this law, thus placing them at once in the two- fold position of rulers and subjects. This paradox of democracy, so enigmatical to many philosophers even of modern times, the ancient Hebrews were put in process of solving, at an early period of their history, as the first authoritative promulgation of their code at JSinai found them organized in thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, for the administration of it, and already becoming accus- tomed to conduct judicial proceedings. COURT OF THE CONGREGATION. But we have not yet fully exhibited the extent to which the democratic principle was carried, in the organization and workings of the Hebrew judiciary. Thus far we have been looking only at the courts for trying civil causes and 88 DEMOORAOY OF OHKiaTIANITY. ordinary or minor offences. W^e come now to look at the arrangements made for tlie adjudication of cases involv- ino- the charge of capital crime, particularly murder. Here, it might be supposed by some that the jurisdiction would be carried further from the mass of the people, who would be liable to be swayed by undue agitation and ex- citement ; and that therefore the decision should be com- mitted to profound jurists, or at least to a select few. The trial by jury, in our times, has justly been regarded a bold advance in the practice of the democratic theory, of no small importance and value. But it is only a lame approximation towards the democracy of the Hebrews. What would be said of the novel scene, even in democratic New England. New York, and other American states, if trials for murder should be conducted by all the citizens of the townships, in open town meetings convened for the purpose, each township taking cognizance of the capital crimes committed within its own limits 1 How many of the readers of the Bible are aware that something like this was Jehovah's express appointment, by Moses, for the children of Israel, when they should have come into possession of their promised inheritance 1 A perusal of the thirty-fifth chapter of the Book of Numbers may tell us whether this were so. " And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, when ye be come over Jordan into the land of Canaan, then shall ye appoint you cities to be cities of refuge for you, that the slayer may flee thither, which killeth any person at una- wares. And they shall be unto you for cities of refuge from the avenger, that the man slayer die not, until he stand before the congregation in judgment." — v. 9-12. After designating the number and location of the cities of refuge, directions are given to the jyeople for determin- ing whether the accused be guiltj?- of wilful murder or no, and if adjudged guilty, " the murderer shall surely be put to death :" but if " he was not his enemy, neither sought his harm, then the congregation shall judge between DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 89 the sla) er and the revenger of blood, according to these judgments ; and the congregation shall deliver the slay- er out of the hand of the revenger of blood, and restore him to the city of his refuge, whither he was fled," &c. — V. 24., 25. In the 20th chapter of the Book of Joshua it is record- ed that " the Lord also spake unto Joshua," repeating the same directions, in nearly the same language, in respect to the cities of refuge, and commanding that the slayer should " sta?id before the congregation for judgment" (v. 6,) and then the history proceeds to name the cities that " they^^ (i. e. the " Children of Israel," who were di- rected to make the selection,) " appointed" for that pur- purpose, (v. 7,) "that whosoever killeth any person at un- awares might flee thither, and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood, until he stood before the congrega- tion." — V. 9. court of final appeal, or reference. There was, however, a court of final resort, in difficult cases, of a less popular element. " If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, betw^een blood and blood, between plea and plea, between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates, then shalt thou arise, and get thee up into the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, and thou shalt come unto the priests, the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and inquire, and they shall show thee the sentence of judgment ; and thou shalt do accor- ding to the sentence which they o^ that place which the Lord shall choose shall show thee ; and thou shalt ob- serve to do all that they inform thee," &c., &c. — Deut. xvii. 8-10. This decision was to be final. The directions given in this passage are referred by commentators to the case of the local "judges," whose appointment was directed in in the previous chapter. If they found it difficult to de- cide, they were to refer the decision to the court above mentioned. It seems natural, however, to extend the ap- 90 DEMuCKAOY OF OIlKlSTlANlXr. plication also to the courts of the congregation, or masses of the people, mentioned in the 35th chapter of Nnmbers. Any of the local courts of justice, however constituted, might be in doubt, and in that case they were to apply to this national court of final reference. Whether a party dissatisfied with the decision of one of the lower courts might in his own name make an appeal to this court, does not clearly appear. Be this as it may, the reason for add- ing the priest to the judge, in difficult cases, is apparent. There was no art of printing, and the authorized copy of •the written law was kept under charge of the high priest, at the metropolis of the nation. The judge was chosen by the people. This cannot be said in respect to the priest J but, on the other hand, it is to be noticed that he was neither self-appointed nor designated by any civil ruler or legislative body, or so-called " government," as distinguished from the community. He held his office by appointment of God himself, as will be shown in another connexion. The appointment of judiciary officers by the national executive or by a legislative body, is an over- sight, in our modern republics, that did not obtain favor with the ancient Hebrews, who were more democratic in this matter than we are. CHAPTER VIIL OF THE HEBREW IDEA OF LAW AND OF LEGISLATIVE POWER. Whoever has studied, to any good purpose, the princi- ple of democracy, understands in some measure, the re- lation it bears to the idea of law, and to the notion of le- gislative power. Autocratic institutions, of whatever form, are based on the idea that the will of the sovereign DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 91 power, whether of a monarch, or of an oligarchy, or of a larger number, is the basis of valid law. Produce the ukase, the edict, the proclamation, or the enactmerit, duly signed, sealed and attested, and, with the disciple of au- tocracy, in its ordinary forms, this is the end of all strife. He knows no boundaries to the power of civil government. One thing as well as another can be enacted or proclaim- ed into a law^ ! The democratic principle, on the other hand, affirms that EQUALITY, the same thing as equity, justice, is the basis of all valid law ; that the essential equality of man with man requires that equality be maintained between them and that the maintenance of this equality is law. The democratic principle, therefore, arrays itself against the more widely prevalent idea of the nature and origin of law, as witnessed in autocratic proceedings and ar- rangements. And hence its struggle to limit the action of governments by bills of rights, constitutional defini- tions, provisions, and inhibitions. So far as these con- form to equality, equity, justice, so far they are adapted to guard the democratic principle from the aggressions of lawless power, but no farther. In our inquiries, therefore, concerning the democracy or the anti-democracy of the Hebrew commonwealth as instituted by God, through the mission of Moses, it is of vital importance to the success of our investigations that we ascertain with precision and bring out into view, with distinctness, the Hebrew idea of law. and ot legislative power, as embraced in the institutions of Moses. If w^e find them to embody the autocratic idea, then we arrive at the one conclusion, if the democratic, the another. At the time when Moses first stood before Pharaoh demand- ing the liberation of the Hebrews, the whole world, so far as we know,was completely under the contro! of the autocratic notion of law. This feature ofthe ancient heathenism was not less strongly marked than that of the worship of false gods. The two features were indeed blended into one. Civil ru- ^2 l^EMOCRACY OF CHRISiTUXITr. lers, kings, princes, chieftains, heroes were regarded as " gods," and their mandate was everywhere identical with law. The idea of any higher or other law appears to have been effectually displaced, to an extent and with a result of which it maybe difficult for us, at present, to form any adequate conception. But a little reflection may help us somewhat in this matter. If even in this nineteenth cen- tury of the Christian era, under a republican form of gov- ernment, among zealous protestants, with high professions of democracy and Christianity on their lips, and intermin- gled with somewhat boastful congratulations of the reign of freedom, we hear it sometimes affirmed, and more fre- quently implied or taken for granted that paper laws, parchment charters, and legislative enactments embody an authority paramount to known and admitted moral right, which is the will of God, what must have been the prevalent ideas among those ancient nations w^ho had lost the knowledge of the true God — who were sunk in the most debasing forms of idolatry — who were everywhere subject- ed to absolute despotic power — and who had not the least conception either of democratic institutions or of the pos- sibility of them, or of the doctrines of human equality and inalienable rights upon which they are founded ? To a great extent the image worship of antiquity was only the extended veneration of their v/arriors and despots after they were dead, and whose statues became objects of idolatrous regard. The images of beasts, birds and reptiles — lions, eagles, and crocodiles — the emblems of royalty and the ensigns of rival dynasties, might very na- turally become objects of worship in the same manner.* So that when we read that God said to Moses, *' Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment," (Ex. xii. * The Brili-h li.m, (he Americin rairlc, in or.r own times, wiiii tlie pic- tures a.'.d iiivigp*^ representing them, celebrated ii^. patriotic songs, and personilicd in anniversary orations, even under llie lijiu of the gi spel nnd prohibit ions of I lie (lecalogue,!)ecome()l>jt>c.tso{'almost idolalrr>us regan'. The etaf.ues of the Napoleun, of Wellington, and of Washington, like the ima- ge's of saints. uii?p:re snuilar veneration. DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 93 12.) we may understand Him, with some commentators, to mean the dumb idols, or with others the despotic rulers of Egypt, and in either case we shall not greatly mistake. The meaning must include both, as the one would involve the other. And how could the miraculous judgments upon Egypt pour contempt and disgrace upon their false gods — the dead ones or the living — and magnify the Jehovah of the Hebrews as the Supreme God, the Fountain and the Source of Law over Egyptians and Hebrews, and all the nations of the earth, without uprooting at the same time the auto- cratic notion of la v as already defined 1 Or how else should Pharaoh be humbled, or his subjects absolved, in the decisions of their own consciences, from that notion of their necessary allegiance to their legitimate monarch, interwoven by the abject submission of their forefathers into every fibre of their being, which notwithstanding all these wonderful manifestations enchained so many thou sands of them, as by a spell of enchantment, to the cnr of their infatuated tyrant, when he entered into the channel of the Red Sea ] At his first interview with Moses, that proud autocrat had demanded, " Who is Jehovah that / should obey his voice to let Israel go 1 / know not Je- hovah, neither will I let Israel go."*^ He knew of no author- ity superior to his own, and his subjects knew of none ! And there v.-as no way in which the authority of Jehovah over them could be vindicated but by uprooting the every where predominant autocratic notion of law. l( this idea could be displaced, then, but not otherwise, could the au- thority of Jehovah be successfully asserted and main- tained. Doubly, nay, vitally important were it, and essentially necessary to the success of the divine plan of procedure in respect to the Hebrews, that the autocratic notion of law should be thoroughly eradicated from tkeir minds, if they were to come willingly and habitualty under the au- thority of Jehovah, and if through the medium and instru- 5* if4. DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. mentality of that chosen people, all the kindreds of the earth were to be ultimately blessed, (according to the di- vine promise to Abraham,) with the restored reign and kingdom of Heaven. But assuming, as we well maj^, that the revealed will of God, as the basis of law in opposition to the autocratic notion of absolute power, is always a true exponent and authoritative enactment of equality, equity, justice,'moral right, we cannot help perceiving that the restoration of the democratic idea of law, must have entered, of neces- sity, into the divine plan — that, whether we say God in- tended to restore to the Hebrews the idea of His own su- preme and exclusive autority over them, or whether we say He intended to restore to them the democratic idea of law, we only express, by these different phrases, one and the same great fact. Theorize as we may, it is evident from the inspired re- cord, that in the process of asserting His own supreme and exclusive authority over the Hebrews, in oppo- sition to the claims of all false gods, and in making the necessary or appropriate arrangements for incorpora- ting into their civil polity the idea of that supreme au^ thority, God did give them the outlines of a democratic commonwealth, as far as possible removed from all the accustomed and appropriate arrangments of absolute king- ly power. Had we started with the inquiry, in the first place, and before stating the facts of the history, what God might be expected to have done for the Hebrews, on the supposition that had He designed to give them democratic institutions, deep sunk as they were in their servile bon- dage, what course could we have imagined for Him to take, that could have been so skillfully adapted or so powerfully operating to produce such a result, as the course actually recorded in the history "? How, without the miraculous judgments inflicted upon the Egyptian autocrat and his servile instruments, could DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 95 He have broken the spell of autocratic ideas that consti- tuted the real though invisible chains of thsir bondage! How else could the democratic idea have been restored or taught to them ? How else could they have been made to comprehend the spirit of the arrangements afterwards made fbr their selection of their own civil rulers 1 How else could they have been made to feel the responsibilities of civil government resting upon their own shoulders, m all their local congregations, in the democratic adminis- tration of penal law ] And how, without the lessons taught them by the plagues of Egypt, and by their own incipient organization into a democratic commonwealth, could they have been prepared for the scenes of Sinai — for the awful solemnities in the midst of which the entire Hebrew nation were to be charged by their Creator and Deliverer from the yoke of despotism, with the adminis- tration of law J the same law they were required to obey, the law of equity, equality, and justice, the law of liber- ty, the law of God, that thenceforth and forever was to displace and annul all other law, and especially the man- dates of despotic power, under which they had so long groaned ? With such a political organization and with such a law, what would be left for the autocratic principle to operate with, or to operate upon, if the people only entered into the spirit of their institutions and administered them in accordance with their design ; or what work could any autocratic usages or arrangements propose to accomplish among theml And with this view of the Hebrew idea of law, and of the institutions designed for its administration, how much scope would be left for the exercise of legislative power 1 Nay, what notion of such power would the Hebrews, if fully imbued with the spirit of their heaven-revealed law and of its appropriate political arrangements, retain ] If God himself had given them a civil code, and made all the necessary provisions for the administrati on of it by ^^ DEMOORAOY OF CJIinTsTIAXlTy. themselves or by judges of their own choosing, what room or necessity would there be for any further legislation, or who or what body of men, how constituted, or how com- missioned, or under what restrictions and limitations, should adventure upon such a service! No one will question that if it were possible to construct a civil government, and to provide for the administration of justice, without erecting any legislative body for the enactment of statute law, and without clothing any officer of state with that tremendous function, the highest possi- ble point of democratic liberty would be reached, and the civil polity carried to the greatest possible remove from any thing retaining the least remains of the autocratic notion of law. How many among our modern champions of the democratic principle have supposed that this could be done ? Or who of those whose idea of liberty has in- eluded the ideas of law and of social order, have attempted any thing of the kind, or even hinted at the possibility of such a desideratum 1 ' " What if it shall be found on examination that the heav- en-established Hebrew commonwealth, composed of liber- ated bondmen, upwards of thirty-three centuries aero or nearly fifteen centuries before the commencement of the Christian era, was constructed on a model very nearly ap- proximating, at least, to the idea of the absence of any legis- lative power in the hands of fallible men, if not in fac't abso- lutely conformed and restricted to that ideal Moses has been called the legislator, the lawgiver of the Hebrews. But in what sense is the title appropriate to to h.m ? Were the laws he promulgated his own enact- ments, on his own authority, or at his own discretion^ Or were they "the commandments of the Lord," » bv the hand of Moses r The latter is the account the'.^cripLe! give of them. Could it be shown that there are excen- tions, and that faulty enactments may be found among hem, then those exceptions and errors would not belong to the divinely established mstitutio„« of which we are DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 97 speaking, and with which alone, (in this inquiry concern- ing the connexion of democracy with Bible religion) we have to do. Whatever may have been the legislative authority of Moses, he left no successors in the legislative department of service, by lineal descent or otherwise. " There arose not a prophet since in Israel whom the Lord knew face to face."— Dcw^. xxxiv. 10. " The law was given by i\loses," not by Joshua, who was only commissioned to conduct the children of Israel into their inheritance, and who was strictly charged to "do according to all the law which (says God) my servant Moses commanded thee ; turn not from it, to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. 'This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein, day and night, that thou mayest observe to do all that is written therein, for then thou shall make thy way prosperous, and thou shalt have good success."— Jos /ma i. 1-8 The only successor of Moses was Christ, as Moses him- self had announced. " The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me, un- to him shall ye hearken." * * * '' A"^^ '^ shall come to pass that whosoever will not hearken unto my words while he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him."— i)er^^ xviii. 15-19. The Jews understood this prophet to be their Messiah, and Peter affirms it to be Jesus. (Acts iii. 22-23.) Thus definitely was the giving of the law restricted to Moses, until the coming of Christ, involving, as it would seem, aii interdict to legislation, in the interim ; and ac- cordingly Jesus was the first of the Hebrew prophets that ever p'^rofessed or attempted to revise the code given by Moses. (Matt. v. &c.) We meet with nothing in the record of the Mosaic econ- omy, that could be mistaken for a legislative body, unless it be the council of seventy, in the eleventh chapter of 98 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. Numbers. A little attention to the facts will show whether legislation was their mission. The people loathed the manna God had provided for them, and murmured for flesh. Moses heard their complainings and was dis- pleased. He spread the case before the Lord, and said: " I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me." — v. 14<. " And the Lord said unto Moses, Gather unto me seventy men of the efders of Is- rael, whom thou knowest to be elders of the people and officers over them, and bring them unto the tabernacle of the congregation, that they may stand there with thee. And I will come down and talk with thee, there ; and I will take of the spirit that is upon thee, and put it upon them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone." — v. 16-17. *' And Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord, and gathered the seventy men of the elders of the people, and set them round about the tabernacle. And the Lord came down in a cloud and spake unto him, and took of the spirit that was upon him, and gave it un- to the seventy elders, and it came to pass that when the spirit rested upon them thai t/iey 2)rop/iesied, and did not cease.'' — v. 24-25. As the case was not one requiring additional legisla- tion, and as no legislation was had, or proposed, or con- sulted upon, it is manifest that the functions of the sev- enty were not legislative. They prophesied, that is, they preached, admonished, or exhorted the people (for this ser- vice among the Hebrews, was never confined to the priest- hood,) a work altogether appropriate to the occasion. And it is worthy of remark that the persons selected were those in whom the people had expressed their confidence by electing them to the office of judges, though neither judicial nor legislative duties were, in this case to be dis- charged by them. This view, accords with the comments of Thomas Scott on the passage, who says : "It is most probable that in consequence of Jethro's advice (Ex. xviii. 17-23,) Moses before this had assist- ants in the administration of justice, and in the affairs of civil government, but it had beea reserved to him ' to be DEMOCRACY OF CRISTIANITY. 99 for the people to God-ward.' In this department, the Lord, on this occasion, appointed him co-adjutors, endued with special grace and wisdom for that service, whose as- sistance, counsel, and authority he might use, in allaying the tumults, quieting the minds or opposing the violence of the people." According to this, their mission was a " special" one, for a special occasion, on which they did not act as legis- lators at all ; and in the subsequent history of the com- monwealth, during the times of Joshua and of the judges, we meet with nothing like legislative action from any such council. We conclude, therefore, that no legislative body was provided for, in the institutions of Moses, though, as Thomas Scott remarks, " the Sanhedrim or council of seventy persons, in the after ages of the Jewish nation, seems to have been a continuation or imitation of this council assigned to Moses." For the acts or for the existence of the " Sanhedrim in the after ages," the then subverted and rejected institutions of the Hebrew com- monwealth are not to be held responsible. If it be true that they added to the Mosaic code or diminished from it, the fact probably belongs to the category of those " tra- ditions of the elders" through which, as Christ tells his countrymen, the commandments of God had been made of none effect ; a sufficient rebuke, one would think, of any Hebrew legislation, during the period extending from Moses to Jesus, being about fourteen hundred and fifty years. Thus we have Christ's own comment, after tlie lapse of so many ages, upon the particular feature of the Hebrew polity, now under review, namel}^, its idea of law and of legislative power. An examination of Mark vii. 1-13 will show that the case adduced by the Savior in- volved a question of civil law^ and his charge against the elders was that the original enactment had been displaced or set aside by their virtual assumption of legislative pow- er, which did not belong to them. 100 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY CHAPTER IX. FURTHER VIEW OF THE MOSAIC CODE — ITS RELATION TO The brevity and apparent paucity of the Hebrew stat- utes are very remarkable, and the more so, in the absence of any provisions for additional legislation. In the eye of modern statesmanship and jurisprudence, this would seem a capital defect ; and it would be, if the modern idea of statesmanship were to be provided for, and the modern science of jurisprudense, so called, encouraged. The sublime yet simple idea of civil government, as embodied in the statute book of Moses, is in no way more clearly revealed or more forcibly impressed than in its siafnificant brevity, its comprehensive paucity, its eloquent silence. What God designs civil government to be, will be readily understood, when mankind can only read, in the instructive blanks of the divine charters, to Noah and his sons and to Moses, what he does ?io/{ design it to be. The modern phases of autocracy, not less than the ancient, re- quire that those blanks be profoundly studied. If learned political economists— if subtle and accomplished jurists, do not find in Moses what they are looking after, let them first, imagine themselves in the place of the people, and ask whether what they were looking after cannot be spared ; let them then look into the record again, and see what they do find, and ponder its value. The true idea of civil government, divested of the lumber of ages, may perhaps, for the first time, be revealed to them, in a more simple democracy than now exists on the earth. The examination proposed will require that whatever in the record pertaining manifestly to the peculiarities of the Old Dispensation, its symbols, its enigmatical rituals, its typical sacrifices and priesthood, its ecclesiastical law intermingled with the civil, be left out of the account, as DEMOCRACY OF CIiniSTIANITV. 101 -^npt appropriate to the arrangements of any other nation Pthan the Hebrews, and previous to the introduction of the New Covenant, by which all those special arrangements, even among them, were displaced. This process will still further reduce the bulk of the code to be considered, and bring within a very narrow compass the law book of Moses. Thus described, it becomes what may well be called a condensed compendium of universal common law, with just enough of statutory enactment to illustrate its bear- ings and applications in a few leading directions, togeth- er with simple rules of evidence and modes of judicial proceedings, in a form and phraseology level to the mean- est capacity, and commending itself to the conscience and common sense of the attentive reader. The foundation of the whole will be found in the deca- logue, which,after having asserted the claims of Jehovah, proceeds, by the same high authority, to protect human rights. ''And God spake all these words, saying, 1 am Jeho- vah thy God, w^hich have brought thee out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images," &c. As their Deliverer from the yoke of despotism, J ekovah proceeds to give them the law of freedom, the very first specification of which is such an assertion of His own fa- therly supremacy over them as absolves them from all othei' allegiance, and especially forbids their ever coming again under the absolute sway either of the living or dead gods of the heathen. In the next item He prohibits their idolatrous use of the statues of heathen gods and despots, or of any of their emblems or ensigns, " in heaven above, in the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth." Having instituted His own reverent worship, and provided for them a day of rest, He proceeds, in the second table of the law, to unfold the relations, rights, and social duties 102 DEMOCRACY OF CIIRISTTANITY. of man. The original familj'^ institution, the bond of ho- \y universal human brotherhood, is guarded by the fifth commandment and the seventh, the right of man to life is guarantied in the sixth, his right to property in the eighth, his right to truth and character in the ninth, The inva- sion of all these rights is guarded against m the tenth. And thus the fundamental principles of human rights are insisted upon, along with the supremacy and the worship of God, as essential parts of religion, and the whole is en- joined in that high spiritual sense which makes it take cognizance of the heart, and prohibit all selfish desires. Of all this, the principle of democracy stands revealed as an essential ingredient. It is manifest that a code of such a character, founded on such a basis, and reposing on such an authority, must have been adapted to present itself to the Hebrew mind in striking contrast with the capricious decrees of the Pharaohs, under whom they had groaned, and conferring upon them freedom by bringing them under the control of the essential law of their being, a law clothed with the authority of God, not of a sinful worm of the dust, like themselves, debased still lower by his insane attempts to be a god over his brethren. In other words, it was adap- ted to supplant the autocratic notion of law by the idea of the universal and divme law of the Infinite Keason, the law of the True and of the Kight, " forever settled in heaven," and in the original and changeless nature of things. And this answers to our highest, most compre- hensive, and most exact conceptions of cojimon law, the law of nature, the law of God, paramount to all human codes, and irrepealable by any act of supposed legislative power. From what other source, indeed, historically or phi- losophically, can our modern idea of Common Law (inclu- ding under that term whatever is deserving of the name) be deduced or derived 1 What nation io-norant of the o code of Moses including the decalogue, has ever made DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 103 any considerable attainments in the science of Common Law, the now recognized basis of human security and lib- erty — the grand bulwark against lawless tyranny and au- tocratic pretension 1 We boast of ourjinheritance of Eng- lish common law, and find in it the charter and panoply of American freedom. But from what source was it de- rived 1 How came it to be our heritage, rather than the heritage of the heathen 1 To prevent needless mistake and confusion in our inqui- ries, we may observe, here, that the law of the decalogue, in some of its aspects, and particularly in its high spirit- ual meaning, as taking cognizance of human desire and motive, transcends infinitely, all the capacities of finite man to act judicially in its administration and enforce- ment. We cannot, for example, conceive of the possibili- ty of committing the tenth commandment, " Thou shalt not covet" — to the care of any human court of judicature, for enforcement, with any prospect of success. The fifth commandment, " Honor thy father and thy mother" — may be broken in many ways which no earthly magistra- cy could reach. The laws against adultery and murder, as expounded by our Savior, and as they will be adminis- tered by our final Judge, may be broken without furnish- ing rational or practicable grounds for an indictment at law, in a human court. Human judges, who cannot look directly into the heart, can take cognizance only of out- ward acts, and not all even of these are of a character to come appropriately under the adjudication of fallible men, or to be corrected, prevented, or punished by them, or in the use of any appliances within their reach. All human arrangements for the administration of justice rest ulti- mately on physical force, and it has always been found a delicate task to settle with precision the bounds within which such penal sanctions, administered by man upon his brother man, can be beneficially, safely, or even right- eously employed. We are compelled therefore to recognize a distinction between the spiritual and the civil law, cor- ^^^ DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. responding with the facts that have now been described. This distinction seems sufficient, by the bye, to correct the mistake of those who would make the jurisdiction of civil government commensurate with the claims and the law of God, and who refuse therefore to recognize the propriety of those limitations which would restrict it to narrower bounds ,• supposing, as they seem to do, that be- cause the civil magistrate derives his authority from God that authority must be as unlimited as the source from whence it is derived ; that because the magistrate's pow- IS to be wielded in obedience to God, he is therefore com- missioned to do all that God does, in the moral and spir- itual government of the world j that, because he is to ex- ecute justice, within the sphere of his appropriate action, that sphere therefore has no limitations! This distinction may likewise help us to conceive that many things morally wrong and forbidden by God's spir- itual law, would not be attempted to be repressed in that part of the code of Moses committed to human jurispru- dence and properly constituting civil law. The dulness of their perceptions, <'the hardness of their hearts," the unskilfulness with which they would administer the more nice and delicate applications of the divine law in its ori- ginal purity, might render it unsafe to put into their hands, in the form of statutory enactment for judicial ends, the law that had been true " from the beginning" in re- spect to divorce, (as the Savior intimatesfand perhaps in respect to polygamy and even domestic servitude as con- nected with it, in that age of the world, and in their then moral and intellectual condition, especially if it shall ap- pear evident, on inquiry, that there was nothing absolute- ly mvoluntary in that servitude, and if we admit, as an exponent of the code of Moses, the democratic maxim that civil law is not for the punishment of every thing that is wicked, but mainly or solely (except as the ecclesiastical law may be interwoven into the civil— an anomaly of the Hebrew polity to be hereafter considered) for the protec DEMOCRACY OF CHKISTIANlXr. 105 tion of human rights, or to repress the aggressions of man upon his brother. In this view, neither divorce, nor po- lygamy, nor the domestic servitude of those times, can claim any divine sanction on the ground that they were not prohibited in the civil code of Moses. The moral law in its high spiritual significancy and as administered by the Supreme Lawgiver remained in full force, all that time, and was sufficiently revealed in the spirit and foun- dation principle of the decalogue, the seventh command- ment being inconsistent with divorce, (except for adul- tery,) as well as with polygamy, and every degree and species of domestic injustice or inequality being prohibit- ed by the eig-hth. Among the most earnest opponents of American slavery there are some who abjure all political action against it because they prefer the power of persua- sive moral arguments to the arm of physical force. It is not foi;,such to impugn the supposed lenity ot the Mosaic civil code in a similar direction, even admitting the sup- position to be a fact, and the cases to be parallel, as we do not. A single item of that code is sufficient to silence the pretence, from any quarter, that any thing like human chattlehood was tolerated under it : "He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death." — Ex. xxi. 16. With the Hebrews, a man unconvicted of crime w is deemed stolen, when taken and held without his consent. (Gen. xl. ]5.) The proximity of this item to others regu- lating the condition of servants, fixes negatively their mean- ing. The terms "bought"and "sold" in such a connexion can not include the idea so emphatically excluded^ and we know that in later times the same terms have been used with a similar latitude, implying nothing more than the purchase and sale of labor with the free consent of the laborer. Wives as well as servants were bought with money, and fathers sold their daughters to be both maid-servants and wives ; but that circ^imstance did not make them slaves. (Ex. xxi. 7-11.) German emigrants have been advertised, and 106 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. " sold at auction" in our American cities — that is, their time for a limited period has been sold to pay their pas- sage money — but this did not enslave them, nor prevent some of them from rising, in a few years, to high posts of office and honor. The seventh year, with the Hebrews, was a year of release in which unliquidated debts were discharged, and servants were set free unless they chose to remain. (Deut. xv.) An exception to this rule, some suppose is found in Leviticus xxv. in respect to servants bought of strangers, but this exposition has been ably contested. "Ye shall inherit them for a possession — they shall be your bondmen forever," may indicate the perpe- tuity of the statute, rather than the duration of the ser- vice. The marginal reading is, "ye shall serve yourselves with them." One other statute sufficiently explicit seems to preclude the possibility of involuntary servitude under the institutions of Moses: * " Thou shalt not deliver unto his master, the servant that hath escaped from his master unto thee ; he shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best^ thou shalt not oppress him." — Deut. xxxiii. 15, 16. What system of involuntary servitude could survive a statute like this 1 That involuntary servitude di 1 take place in some periods of the Hebrew history militates not against our conclusion. The terrible rebukes of the in- spired prophets, on account of such servitude, supplies us, on the other hand, with the best commentary upon this feature of the code of Moses. (Jer. xxxiv. 8-17. Neh. v. 1-13. Isa. Iviii. 1-11. Amos ii. 6. Joel iii. 3.) We vindicate, then, the code of Moses not only from the charge of lending its sanction to moral wrong, but from the imputation of overlooking, in the directions that have been con- sidered, the proper functions of civil government. It seemed requisite at some stage of our inquiries to examine these alle- gations, and we were naturally drawn into the examination here, in connexion with the obvious and necessary distinction DEMOORAOY OF CHRISTIANITY. 107 between the decalogue, considered as a compendium of moral and spiritual law, reaching to the innermost recesses of the soul, and taking cognizance of the thoughts and intents of the heart, known only to God — by Him alone to be judged ; and that same decalogue as forming the basis of an equitable and divinely established civil code. On nothing short of such a basis could such a code repose for support. From nothing else could it derive authority, or draw moral life. Remove the decaloo-ue, and have removed the underpinning of the civil code of Moses — you have withdrawn the moral atmosphere that gives vitality to the structure. Remove both the decalogue and the code and you have removed the germe of Common Law. From whence, we repeat and press the inquiry, is our mod- ern common law derived? Those Anglo-Saxon forefathers of ours, the worshippers of Woden and Thor — deceased and dei- fied chiefs, and deified because while living their autocratic man- date was law — from what quarter di3 tJie influences come that so thoroughly revolutionized their ideas, or those of their English de- scendants, as to substitute for those heathen and servile notions the sublime conception of Christian Common law? Did they originate within themselves, self-moved and without any change in their re/^g^o;^, the authoritative and lucid maxims that now adorn the common law volumes of their Cokes, their Littletons, their Blackstones, their Fortescues, their Bractons, their Hobarts, their Woodses, their Noyeses, their Jenkses, and their Hales ? Was it from pagan Rome with her thirty thousand gods and deified autocrats — was it from the philosophers of Greece — was it from the Solons and Lycurguses of antiquity, (juniors as they were of Moses, and possibly borrowing a few^ reflex rays of light from him) was it from any of these, or from either, or all of them, that our English writers drew their ennobling lore ? Grotius, Puft'endcorf, Montesquieu, Vattel, and all the kindred writers of continental Europe whose pages are, to any extent, enriched with the glorious maxims of universal, life-inspirin o- and liberty-giving Common Law— in what market, from what venders did they "buy the truth?" It may be said that the truths of Common Law are self-evi- 108 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. dent, or derived from the principles of natural religion. Grant- ed, if you please. But hoY\' happens it that self-evident truths and the principles of natural religion, Avith the corresponding ideas of law and liberty, are no where grasped hold of, appre- hended, and retained by any considerable portion of a commu- nity, where neither Christianity nor the books of Moses and the prophets have shed any light ? R ome and Greece had their republics, as they w^ere called, long after the promulgation of the Code of Moses and the example of the Hebrew Common- wealth. But after all, what w^ere they ? What safeguards did they provide for human freedom, for inalienable rights, for in- dividual security and orderly activity ? Where and what was their Common Law ? * Some may imagine that Moses only gathered up the wisdom of those who then lived or who pre- ceded him. The deep servility and degradation even of Egypt, discredits the supposition. ^ But were it so, the fact would re- main that his Code has been the teacher of all subsequent ages, in the science of liberty and law. Premisino' that we are not to mistake for Common L:iw the rubbish that may have crept into the volumes containing it, nor the corrupt usages and precedents with which it is sometimes confounded, nor with the error of those who would have the magistrate enforce tenets and forms of religion, because re- ligion lies at the basis of law, let us collect and place to- gether, side by side, for convenient comparison, some of the foundation maxims of the Hebrew and the English Com- mon Law, and see whether there be any relationship between them. * S.)me inaxiirts and seatimpiits similar to those of our English Com- men Law may in lee I be tound in the pa.os of Cicero and i^ome other ancient pajran writ-Ts, but does ii ajT()ear that they were generally recocf- nizcd by thoir coun'rymen or incorp iratoil into their institutions and ju- rii^prudi'nce 7 A few stronj[ and cultivated minds niii^ht rise, intellect- ually, above the low gro md of autocracy and heathenism, but they lack- ed the divine auihority and co nniission of Moses to enforce the truths which — not improbably— they bad learned directly or indirectly, from him. But, be it DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITT. Common Law becomes in the hands of most judg'es what the- ological truth so often is to its expositors, a beautiful theory ^ a lauded abstraction. The Hebrew Common Law was promulgated in a different style, and was to have been administered under other auspi- ces. It knew of no legislator but God, it provided for no oth- er, it spoke of no other, it permitted no other. It ignored, at once, all human enactments, all human decisions, all human precedents. It announced the law of God^ and there ended its message. That law ascertained, and its application made apparent, there was no further question pending. The law was to be obeyed — was to be administered ; and in the ad- ministration of law the Hebrew community learned and found obedience to law — the law of their Maker. Some speak of the ancient Hebrews as semi-barbarians, and perhaps truly. Yet to these same semi-barbarians, if they were such, God commit- ted the administration of his Law, as a civil code, and made it their sole political and judicial guide and shelter. How far they honored their responsibilities is not now the question, nor into what depths they sunk by their disobedience. We hold up the fact of their experiment, and ask whether it be ac- counted safe for our modern civilization and Christianity to at- tempt entering upon a similar one, or how long before it will be prudent for us to take the elevated position that God as- sio-ned, thirty-three centuries ago, to semi-barbarians, just emancipated from Eg} ptian bondage ? "VYe say farther that the experiment of Hebrew self-government under the demo- cratic polity provided for them, succeeded to the same extent that the religious institutions provided for them succeeded — that so far as they were elevated at all by the divine culture of the Mosaic economy (and we hold their elevation to have been an essential stage of human improvement) it Avas an elevation that made them more democratic, and that the decline and re- vival of their religion and the decline and revival of their de- mocracy went hand in hand, at every subsequent period of their history. Whether the Hebrew statutes recorded in the books of Mo- DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIAMITV. 115 ses should be considered an integral part and exponent of the Hebrew Common Law or a divinely enacted Code in addition to it, matters little to the point now before us. In either case, they constituted together a revelation of the divine will, as permanent as the Hebrew state, or Mosaic economy ; as such they admitted of no human additions or modifications and must stand " till all be fulfilled" — till their mission was accomplish- ed, the new dispensation introduced, and all that was tempo- rary in the old should " vanish away." So that the Hebrew courts of justice for nearly fifteen hundred years were shut up to the Mosaic code, in other words, to the law of God, the highest standard in difficult and perplexing cases being — "Judge the people with just judgment," "That which is alto- gether just shalt thou follow," "Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment," "Thou shalt do that which is right and good in the sight of the Lord," "For the judgment is God's" — equivalent to the modern common law maxims : " The reasona bleness of law is the soul of law," and "The right of the case is the law of the case." Some persons professionally or habitually conversant with judicial proceedings, authorities, precedents, statutes, and special pleadings, as we commonly witness them, have objected, strongly, to the proposed common use and practical application of these great principles and foundation maxims of Common Law. They are horror-stricken with the idea that courts and juries should ever adventure under any conscien- tious misgivings, ideas of natural justice, of moral right, or of divine requirement, to swerve from the established precedents, the received authorities, and especially from the imperial ukase, the royal decree, the regularly enacted statute. The oath of the court and jury to be governed by "law and evidence" they construe to mean a solemn promise, in the fear of God, the God of justice, to follow the duly attested parchments, the regular recorded authorities, the officially registered precedents, wherever they may lead, though Avith the clear perception all the while that justice, equity, right, and divine law are thereby exposed to be trampled in the dust; nay, with the full convic- tion or even the certain knowledae that such is the fact of the 116 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. case, for the time being ! Any thing hke resolving all our Courts of Law into courts of Equity like those of the Hebrews, they would resist, as a dangerous innovation. They represent that this would make the law so uncertain that it w^ould be safer to live under a despotic government whose edicts were well understood than under a democracy where such loose usages should prevail. They would deem it the very defini- tion of anarch}^, if courts and juries (especially if appointed di- rectly by the people) should be empowered to decide what is and what is not law by their own notions of what is just and right. They allege that what one man considers just another considers unjust, and thus the law would become uncertain and the government impracticable. Now this objection is not only unfounded but directly oppo- site to the known facts of the history of jurisprudence, and equally subversive of fundamental morality, the foundations of legal science, and the first principles of civil government. Sir William Jones, one of the most learned judges of mod- ern times, the most profoundly skilled in the history of Asiatic as well as European law, after looking over the whole sub- ject, has said : *• It is pleasing to remark the similarity or rather the identi- ty of those conclusions which pure unbiassed reason, in all ages and nations, seldom fails to draw, in such judicial inquiries as are not fettered and manacled by positive institutions." — Jones on Bailments, 133. Chancellor Kent says : " Such is the imperfection of language and want of techni- cal skill in the makers of law, that statutes often give occasion to the most perplexing and distressing doubts and discussions, arising from the ambiguity that att- nds them. It requires great experience as well as the command of a perspicuous dic- tion, to frame a laAv in such clear and precise terms as to se- cure it from ambiguous expressions, and from all doubts and criticisms of its meaning." — Kent, 460. Many terms employed, in drafting statutes are necessarily used in a variety of significations. And hence the rule has been laid down that the language of wrilten statutes shall he construed, as fa?' as possible, in accordance with natural law. DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 117 And ^Yllen, to the imcertainty of language, we add, the con- fusion of ^voluminous statutes enacted by different legislators, at different periods, for different and conflicting objects, with discordant ideas of policy, and with a view to temporary or lo- cal utility, forgetful in too many instances, of equity and jus- tice, the difficulty is vastly increased, but it ends not here. To the volumes of ambiu'uous and discordant statutes, we must add as many more of equally uncertain and contradictory pre- cedents, reports, and decisions, and no marvel that the " glori- ous uncertainty of the law" becomes a proverb. Few pend- ing cases can be shown to be exactly parallel to any cases pre- viously decided, and the conflicting authorities, decisions, and precedents that shall be cited by opposing parties, at a single trial, might suffice to beget a despair of arriving to any satis- factory conclusions by such a process. If precedents, author- ities, or even statutes, are allowed any further force than as subordinate helps to ascertain justice, they become traps and nets rather than guides or defences. And no enlightened ju- rist would expect to succeed in reducing the statutes and law decisions in any state or nation to any thing like the or- der, method, and conformity to principle, that would be ne- cessary to make them constitute what should be called a science, at least without taking the great principles of natural equity as his standard and polar star, in the light of which 1 1 con- strue and even revise the anomalous and the perplexing. The truth is. Common Law, the law of Nature, the law of God, the same that was authoritatively committed to the He- brews, by the hand of Moses, is vastly more definite, more uniform, more stable, more intelligible, than any other law ; nay, it is all that gives perspicuity, stability, precision, and du- rability or authority, to the code or statutes of any nation ; that is to say, in any desirable application of those terms. The de- cree may indeed be intelligible that enacts the grossest injus- tice, and it may have the perpetuit)^, whatever it may be, that attaches to the tyranny that enacted it, but mankind have no occasion to congratulate themselves either upon the perspicu- ity, the certainty, or the permanency of such edicts or statutes! 118 DEMOCRACY OT CHRISTlANiTi'. So far as any enactments are in harmony with human rights and tend to protect them, so far they are in unison with Com- mon Law, the law of nature, the law of God, and are to be construed and understood in the hgbt of them. And this principle of interpreting the laws is recognized by all enlight- ened jurists whose object it is to maintain justice, and protect human rights. If such a government be not practicable, there can be no good reason for maintaining any government at all. And the government that instead of preventing injustice only busies itself in committing it (as any government must do that is not conformed to natural law) becomes a pubKc pest in- stead of a protector. Jehovah made no mistake, and Moses committed no blunder,, in committing the administration of natural law to the Hebrews. " There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty hath given him understanding." There is a moral sense in every man, revealing the right and the wrong, the just and the unjust. Even little children know many of the principles of justice, at an early age. All men know, or may know, what is justice to others, by inquiring what they would regard as just to themselves. It Avas for no lack of the power of moral perception that the ancient heathen lost the proper conception and due estimate of inalienable human rights. It was because they had become sensualized and besotted, as the masses of heathen nations now are, and were willing to sell their birth- right for a mess of pottage. This was the difficulty with the old Greeks and Romans. This was the difficulty with our An- glo-Saxon fathers, and this was the difficulty with the ancient Hebrews until God made himself heard and seen, by his won- derful visitation, and roused them from their moral lethargy. Thus roused, the law of Sinai found a response in their own bosoms. It gave them no new faculties — ^no new powers of perception — ^no new objects of moral vision. It did compel their attention. It did appeal to their hearts. The Hebrews were essentially elevated. And through them, the lesson has been taught in some measure, or is in process of teaching, to the whole ciAdlized world. 1 ^ DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANTY. 1 1 9 The trial by jury, and the growing authority of Common Law are important stages in human progress. When legisla- tive enactments became too complex and contradictory to be either understood or reconciled, or else too unjust to be borne or administered, enlightened Christian jurists, from time to time, relieved themselves from self-reproach, and the people from oppression, by declaring, in the name of nature's God, in the name of humanity, and in the teeth of princely tyrants and venal legislatures, the paramount supremacy of Common Law, the law of the Right, the self-evident, the universal, the irre- pealable Law. In this they approximated towards the code and the institutions of Moses which the Scriptures had made known to them, and the spirit of which Christianity had pre- served and diffused among the people. Then, when conflict- ing precedents, technicalities, forms, and enactments, in des- pite of all that had been done to diminish their authority, had manacled and crippled the freedom of judicial inquir}^ and ac- tion beyond farther endurance, the trial by jury introduced the counter element of plain common sense and unsophisticated conscience, to assist in the administration of justice. By this means, still farther accessions of natural or Common Law have been added to the former stock. In the meantime, the inde- pendence of juries and their original sense of justice have suf- fered by their contact with the jargon of the courts and the as- sumptions of legislative power, until a further step seems re- quisite to rescue the judiciary from impending disgrace, to pre- vent it from becoming one vast chess board upon which pro- fessional gamesters may play their games of dexterity and chance, at the public expense. What shall that new step be, but the absolute and actual supremacy of Common Law, the identity of law with equit}^ and the farther restriction, to say the least, if not dethronement, of legislative prerogative and power ? And how, without something of this kind can we ever real- ize anything deserving the name of political or legal science, that can be studied and learned. Every science has its funda- mental first principles, self-evident, or shining in their own 120 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. J|t^ lio-ht. t'rom these the various parts of the science are to be educed. The sciences are to be studied and learned ; not en- acted by statute 1 So far as they are learned and appropri- ately applied, so far, and no farther, can beneficial results be secured by them. They have a certain and veritable existence and can neither be enacted or repealed. They are the same in all places and at all times. Thus it must be ^vith the sci- ence of government and law. But how can any such science be cultivated, understood, or applied to its proper ends, so long as the people are deluded with the notion that their rulers or thtir r( prtsenlatives,or they themselves, can make civil law, any more than they can make the laws of chemistry or electricity, or mechanics ? Or how shall a professedly free and democratic people be cured of such delusions or relieved from such quack- eries, till they study the lesson God gave to tiie Hebrews, thirty-three centuries ago, namely, that the law is already made to their hands, (the law of their social nature as well as of their physical constitutions) that all they have to do is to learn and obey and apply it, for the purposes for which it was designed, instead of keeping legislatures in pay, six or nine ra mths yearly, to manufacture law for them, which they can no more do than they can manufacture the laws of gravitation and of motion ? We have been drawn farther into these disquisitions than we intended. Our simple object was to bring out for inspec- tion, the Hebrew ideas of law and of legislative power, as taught them by their peculiar course of training and by the institutions and laws provided for them ; and to furnish a clue to the natural and historical connexion between the early les- sons thus given to that faA'ored portion of tlie human family, and the subsequent progress of other portions of the race, par- ticularly our own. We knew not how to present so vast a sub- ject of inquiry, in a shorter space. In doing it, we have prob- ably given expression to some sentiments that the reader will question. That privilege is his, and we only ask of him to consider well, before he decides, and that be permit the indis- DEMOCRACY OF CHKISTIANITi'. 121 putable facts of the case to be engraven upon his memory. God directed tlie Hebrews to be organized into a democratic ccmmonwealth, for the orderly administration of justice. That organization consisted of a judiciary chosen by the people, but reserving to themselves, en masse^ the adjudication of capital offences, •with a high court of general reference, in difficult cases, in which the divinely appointed priest acted with the democratic judge. To the people, as thus organized, God com- mitted the administration of civil p'overnment, without the in- tervention of any legislative body, or, as will be shown here- after, of any central executive power. Their legislation was all done up for them, by God himself, in the beginning, and the law was equivalent to what we call the law of nature, the law of the right, or Common Law, with a few brief statutes to illustrate its bearings, and rules of evidence and trial. This describes the whole, that is, after leaving out the peculiarities of the Old Testament economy as a system of symbolical teach- ing and consequent ecclesiastical polity, which have now pass- ed awa3\ Let these facts be pondered, especially the absence of any legislature, and let it be asked, Avhat was the signifi- cancy of all this ? What did God teach by it, and what is the bearing of the lesson thus taught, upon the principle of democracy, in connexion with the institutions of Moses? CHAPTER X. CIVIL AND JUDICIAL CODE FURTHER ANALYZED. We have said that while the Decalogue contained the foun- dation principles of the civil Code of Moses, it was distinguisha- ble from it, inasmuch as no human judiciary could administer it, in all its spirituality of bearing and import. We have also said that the civil Code, excluding from it the peculiarities of the typical and priestly dispensation, now abol- 122 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. ished, was so brief and generic as to constitute little more than a compend of Common Law, or exemplifications or illustrations of it, in a few principal directions, including the laws of evi- dence and judicial proceedings. . That the reader may the better judge of these statements we will now turn his attention, more directly, to the proofs of them. The decalogue is contained in the twentieth chapter of Ex- odus, and that chapter concludes with some directions con- cerning the construction of altars for sacrifice. The twenty- first chapter opens as follows: " Now these are the judgments which thou shalt set up be- fore them." — V. 1. ''Judgments. — The word here means judicial laws, or rules of judgment by which the magistrates and judges should pro- ceed, in determining causes, and trying criminals. Making some allowance for the circumstances varying in different ages and nations there is a spi7'it of equity in these laws, which is well worthy to be transfused into those of any state." — Scott's Commentary. From the second to the eleventh verse certain maxims are laid down in respect to the laws of servitude and of marriage. Then, from the twelfth to the twenty-first verse, we find rules to be observed in the case of trials for capital offences, particu- larly murder. From the twenty-second to the twenty-seventh verse, there are similar rules to be observed, in trials for per- sonal assaults of various descriptions. From the twenty-eighth to the thirty-second verse, we have illustrations of the extent of human responsibility in cases where death is occasioned by reckless carelessness on the part of any person, as when a man or woman is gored by an ox, belonging to another. From the thirty-second to the thirty-sixth verse, which closes the chap- ter, the same principle of responsibihty is illustrated, by famil- iar cases, in respect to damages to property by similar care- lessness. In like manner the greater part of the twenty-second chap- ter is occupied with rules of adjudication in cases of theft — in cases of trespass upon another's property — in cases of losses of DEMOCRACY OF CMRISTIANITr. 123 property left in the keeping of another, and of property bor- rowed — 'in cases of breach of promise of marriage, &c., &c., also concerning debts, interest, and securities. In the twenty-third chapter are a few similar directions con- cerning cattle strayed from their owners or in need of assist- ance. The law of restitution in cases of trespass, violen3e, or false testimony, is given in the sixth chapter of Leviti- cus (verses 1 — 5.) The eighteenth chapter of Leviticus is chiefly occupied with specifications of the restrict- tion of marriages among near relations, and the pro- hibition of certain bestial and scandalous practices ; the nineteenth chapter contains a few verses concerning the gleanings of harvest fields and the wages of hired persons, (v. 9-12.) and concerning adulterj'- (v. 20.) The twentieth chapter contains some directions for the pun- ishment of adultery and similar crimes. The twenty- fourth chapter contains a repetition of the law concerning the punishment of murder and other oftences (v. 17-22.) The twenty-fifth chapter contains laws against usury, (v. 35-37.) also concerning bondmen and servants (v. 39-55. The fifth chapter of Numbers contains directions for the restitution of the injured, (v. 7. 8.) also a peculiar law of adjudication by the priest in matrimonial jealousies. The twenty-seventh chapter contains a statement of the rights of females to inherit property, and the thirtieth chapter contains laws concerning vows, of men, of wives, and of daughters, The thirty-fifth chapter contains directions concerning arrests and trials for murder, including the law of testimony. The book of Deuteronomy contains various repetitions with occasional amplifications of the preceding directions, and a few additions. In the fifteenth chapter it is provi- ded that servants when released in the jubilee should be amply compensated for their services — another item which illustrates the nature of the Hebrew servitude. The nineteenth chapter contains some repetitions of the rules 124 DEivlOCRACV OF CRISTIANITY. for trying persons charged with murder ; it provides for the punishment of false witnesses, and prohibits the re- moval of land-marks. The twentieth chapter contains certain laws in lespect to war ; the twenty-first, concern ing captives taken in war, concerning persons found slain when the murderer was unknown ; and also concerning wives and disobedient sons, and the mode of executing criminals. The twenty-second chapter is chiefly occu- pied with a recapitulation of sundry laws previously re- corded, and some amplifications of the hw of marriage. The twenty-fourth contains the law of divorce, and a re- petition of some previous enactments. The twenty-fifth contains some further directions to judges concerning punishments, and some peculiar laws concerning mar- riages. &c. This Index which may perhaps fuij of being entirely complete will answer the ends of the writer, in directing the reader to the principal parts of the civil and judicial code of the Hebrews. The whole may be read over delib- erately in one or two hours ; and that single fact in con- trast with the codes of other nations, too voluminous for the mass of the people interested in them, is a fact that speaks volumes. That fact of itself proves that the code could not not have been intended to cover, in the minute detail of modern legislative enactment, all the ground of judicial proceeding, and consequently its use must be found, as we have already intimated, in fixing the fundamental principles and the essential grounds and modes of judicial decision, A mere glance at the topics of judicial action here indi- cated is equally instructive, and impels to a similar con- clusion. Mixny forms of crime, of injury, and of aggres- sion would need judicial attention, in respect to which no specific enactment, (on the modern legislative model) could be produced ; and so, according to modern notions of jurisprudence, the aggressor would go unpunished and the victim unredressed, for want of a specific enactment DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIAIS'ITY. 125 Not so in the Hebrew courts, if it were there understood, as it must have been, that these "judgments " were but exemplifications and illustrations of the more general common law maxim to "judge the people with just judg-, ment,'' by which, at all times their decisions were to be governed. The very style and form in which these "judgments" were announced, being altogether popular, familiar, unstudied, divested of all legal technicalities, affected precision, and stiffness, thrown together without method, repeated at convenience, amplified, enlarged, intermingled with pious exhortations, prudential counsels, glowing pre- dictions, affectionate appeals, and even with ritual and ceremonial institutes, tends to produce the same impres- sion. They were addressed to the common sense of the masses, and the responsibility of carrying them out in the spirit with which they were dictated, and which manifestly breathed in them was at once thrown upon them. In this way, assuming that the people were gifted with, conscience and common understanding, the administration of the law, in ordinary cases, would be no difficult task. The simple direction to "judge righteously" with the admonition " for the judgment is God's," would help any upright "judge of fifties or of tens '' or the entire " congregation" to dispose of most cases more happily in a single day, f'* than most of our complex and sophisticated judicatories would do after a delay of months and even years. A second glance at the topics introduced in these "judg- ments " will show that the selections w(^e made in the best possible manner, to illustrate the classes of cases that would be most difficult to decide without some such as- sistance, and that, with all their conciseness, they were admirably adapted to show the comprehensive bearings of the principle of justice in a great variety of directions. And yet it is equally apparent that if civil goverment could now be confined to the same description of topics, its sphere of activity and jurisdiction would be greatly 126 » DEMOCRACif OF CHRISTIANITY. reduced, and the work of legislation would soon be ex- hausted or circumscribed within narrow limits, in com- pari&oD with the range occupied at present. Indeed the .Hebrew code (leaving out, as we have done, what was evidently peculiar to that typical dispensation) would be found to be almost if not entirely confined to the protec- tion of human rights, including the punishment of flagrant crime. It must be conceded that there are, however, some statutes which at this distance of time it is not very easy to classify, so as to be certain whether they should be con- sidered as belonging to the peculiar and temporary, or whether they embody a principle of general application. The law forbidding usury, ('' increase" or interest) in pecuniary transactions between Hebrews, might admit of some debate. The Hebrew prophets seem to rank the breach of this law among other oppressions and moral delinquen- cies of the gravest character. If, as some modern wri- ters allege, and as many commercial men and financiers believe, there is no business that as a general fact will compete with interest money, so that business can safely be carried on by those who pay interest, and if the prac- tice be closely connected with most forms of pecuniary distress and oppression— if, without intending it, the mo- ney lender commonly injures the money borrower— if there is an inherent illusion in the transaction by which the most sagacious are almost uniformly deceived— if very few who pay interest are not ultimately the losers by it— then there might be plausibility in the opinion of some that the prohibition was made on high moral grounds, of general application, and fairly included in the function of administering justice between a man and his neighbor. On the other hand, it is to be observed that the Hebrew was not prohibited from lending money on interest to foreigners, which might seem to conflict with the sentiment that the practice is malum in se. The pre- valent belief is that the transaction is often a mutual ben- DEMOCRACY OF CHKISTIANITV. 127 efit to the parties— that widows and orphans in the pes- ' session of small sums are benefitted by lending them, through the operations of banking, to active and enter- prising men of larger fortunes, who can well afford to pay- interest— and accordingly some maintain that the price of money should be left to regulate itself, like that of other commodities, by the laws of supply and demand. What- ever view we may take of this matter, it cannot be doubt- ed that the tendency of the Hebrew law was to prevent the accumulation of overgrown estates and the creation of an aristocracy of wealth. In this respect it harmonised with the equal division of land, and the prohibition of its permanent transfer. The marked solicitude of the He- brew policy to prevent the extremes of wealth and pover- tjr, and to preserve as far as practicable an equality of possessions cannot be denied, and the radically democra- tic bearing of all this is equally indisputable. It is certainly a remarkable circumstance that the only point wherein the Hebrew law seems to trench upon the freedom of commercial intercourse, is the very point where such un- restricted freedom would be most likely to foster the lay- ing up of large fortunes and the consequent inequality of property among the people. The regulation reminds us of the Spartan law of after times for similar ends, accord- ing to the provisions of which the currency of the country was restricted to the heavy and cheap metal, iron. Such laws present a striking contrast to those modern schemes of political economy, so called, in which the principle of free intercourse is infringed for the obvious and some- times the avowed purpose of enabling a favored class of capitalists to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor laborer. The law of usury, the laws of servitude in some of their aspects, the law of divorce, and some other laws, may present difficulties which the modern inquirer may not be able, very readily or satisfactorily to solve, and few persons, if any, would think it incumbent upon a modern 128 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. commonwealth to copy the letter of some other Hebrew statutes, or even proper to do so. We cannot know-, pre- cisely, the state ot things which these regulations were designed to meet and rectify. But this need not lead us to doubt that there were good reasons for them at the time. And the fact that we find, even in the brief statute book of the Hebrews, some items that at this distance of time we can but imperfectly understand, and which, according to the strict letter we cannot now apply, confirms the sen- timent we have already advanced concerning the superior certainty and perspicuity of Common Law, or the law of equity, over any written specific statutes. If even when God himself legislates in the form of statutory provisions, the uncertainty of human language, the dimness of histo- rical illustration, and other disadvantages render them obscure or unavailable, in the lapse of ages, or in their application to other communities, we are impressively taught by that fact what Paul notices, that " the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life" — that servility to dead forms and technicalities regardless of the spirit that ori- g-inally animated them is murderous, while nothing but the living spirit of them can restore life io them — and, of course, that all specific statutes, however, whenever, or by whomsoever enacted, are to be read and construed in the light of irrepealable, universal, transparent Common Law. And if Divine Wisdom is thus sparing of specific stat utes, and thus careful to guard against the misapplication of them, by giving them as illustrations of universal law, enthroning that as the exponent of all statutes, (as Christ teaches when speaking of David's eating the shew bread Math. xii. 4.) in what terms shall we speak of the pre- sumptuous, the reckless, the interminable multiplication of man-made statutes, the fruits and the implements of selfish partizan strifel And what shall we say of the ex- altation of these as paramount, in Courts of Justice, over the well-known and admitted dictates of Natural Right ? DEMOCRACY Ol' CIIUISTIANITr. 129 In what way could man place himself move conspicuously in the place of God, showing himself to be God, and ex- alting himself above all that is called God and is worship- ped ? Or in what way could the liberties and rights of a people be more effectually trampled in the dusti If man would be free from the tyranny of man, he must abase him- self and exalt God, as he cannot do while placing his own parchments in the place of Equity and Justice, the pillars of God's throne. ALIEN LAWS. The Hebrew laws respecting strangers are so remarkable and are so earnestly and variously urged, that we deem it no vain repetition to copy them as we find them, that the reader may be duly impressed with them, as God intend- ed the Hebrews should be : " One law shall be to him that is home born, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you." — Ex. xii. 49. " Thou shalt not vex a stranger, nor oppress him, lor ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." — Ex. xxii. 21. " Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger, for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." — Ex. xxiii. 9. "And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him ; but the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born amongst you, and thou shalt love him as thyself, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God." — Lev. xix. 33, 34. • " Ye shall have one manner of law as well for the stran- ger as for one of your own country j for I am the Lord your God." — Lev. xxiv. 22. " One ordinance shall be both for you of the congrega- tion, and also for the stranger that sojourneth with you, an ordinance forever in your generations ; as ye are, so shall the stranger be before the Lord. One law and one manner shall be for you, and for the stranger that sojourn- eth with you." — J\umh. xv. 15, 16 "For the Lord your God is a God of gods, and Lord ot lords, a great God, a mighty and a terrible, which regar- deth not persons, nor taketh reward. He doth execute 130 DEMOCRACY OF CIIRISTIANTTT the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and Joveth the stranger in giving him food and raiment. Love ye there- fore the stranger, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. — Deut. x. 17-19. " And this shall be a statute forever * * * whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger that sojourneth among you." — Lev. xvi. 29. These laws are the more remarkable as having been enacted for a " peculiar" people, separated from all the nations of the earth and distinguished by special privi- leges from every other people. For this very reason, perhaps, the greater care was taken to guard them against national pride. To the same end they were frequently reminded that they were not thus distinguished on ac- count of their superior goodness, but on account of the divine purpose revealed to Abraham, and for the ultimate benefit of all the families of the earth. (See Deut. ix. 48, &c.) The bond of universal human brotherhood they were to cherish as most sacred, and not exait themselves above any portion of their fellow men. What a contrast to the cherished pride, misanthropy, and arrogance that enter into the ideas of patriotism and national glory, so much admired, but so fatally subversive of the principles of human equality and freedom ! THE DIVISION AND THE TENURE OF LANDS BANKRUPTCY, AND LIMITATION OF COLLECTION OF DEBTS MORTGAGES, SE- CURITIES, * DEMOOKAOi' OF UllRlSTlANlTr. 149 recorded as having been much occupied in judicial mat- ters, and what we call legislation must have been with the Hebrews of that era, out of the question. God '< raised them up" for special services in His providence, as He " raises up" other distinguished men, good and bad, (Pha- raohs not excepted) though the history and the texts cited lead us to consider some of them as good men. Othniel and Gideon appear to have been divinely commissioned and to have entered into the spirit of their mission. In the raising up of these Judges no new political in- stitutions were introduced. Their functions were peculiar — the office (if it be called such) occasional, extraneous, not permanently incorporated into the national polity.* One remarkable attempt during the period under re- view, to usurp kingly power and overturn the common- wealth, deserves a moment's attention. Abimelech, one of the numerous sons of Gideon, soon after his death, as- pired not to be judge but king. He " went to Shechem, unto his mother's brethren and communed with them, and with all the family of the house of his mother's father, saying, Speak, I pray you in the ears of all the men of Shechem, saying. Whether is better for you, either that all the sons of Jerubbaal [Gideon] which are three score and ten persons reign over you, or that o?ie reign over you. Kcmember also that I am your bone and your flesh." — Judges ix. 1, 2. The argument for monarchy in preference to a common- wealth, that the control of one is preferable to the control of vm?iy^ is here distinctly visible. The same argument is current in kindred circles to the present day. The appeal was successful. The men of Shechem sup- plied Abimelech with silver out of the house of Baal-bereth, wherewith he " hired light and vain persons which fol- lowed him." Baal-bereth was one of their irods and * These [ jud<,'es] were not a leirular gucccssion oT ns and prohibitions with which the grant was accompanied would be broken over, and their remaining liberties gradually undermined. The blessings of democratic freedom He would not force upon them. Like the high spiritual blessings with which they were naturally connected, they could not be forcibly conferred, nor unwilling- ly or heedlessly enjoyed. ' The Lord sees the hearts of His own people," says Scott, '* too much disposed to be like the world around them, and for their chastisement. He frequently permits them to obtain the object of their foolish desires." The history of the revolution predicted by Moses, is record- ed in the First Book of Samuel. That prophet was the last of DEMOCR.U'V OF CHRLSTJANlTy. 15^ the serins of extraordinary judges raised up for the deliverance of Israel. His general course was remarkably correct, but in his old age he unwisely promoted his sons to be judges* in his stead, and *' his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside af- ter lucre, and took bribes, and per\erted judgment." Here was just occasion for a judiciary reform, but none for the subver- sion of the commonwealth, or for the establishment of a mon- arch3^ But the leading men in the nation took advantage of these abuses, to bring forward and push their favorite revolu- tion arj^ projects. " Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves togeth- er, and came to Samuel toRamah, and said unto him. Behold, thou art very old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways, now make us a king to judge us, like all the nations." — /. Sam. viii. 4-5. Tt is easy to conceive that the elders wvciy have made a very plausible and eloquent argument on this occasion. As advo- cates of monarchy, they might have adverted, as their succes- sors have so frequently done, to the inconveniences, the irreg- ularities, the disorders, to which democracies were exposed, and to which that community has been so long subjected for the want of a '' stronger government." How often, during the last four centuries, had the nation been invaded and ravaged, if not laid under tribute. The relief, under the most success- ful of their commanders, had been but temporary and uncer- tain. At times, they had been left utterly defenceless and un- organized. There needed a central and consolidated power that should give unity and stability to the national action, that should combine the national forces, that should keep the coun- try in a proper and prudent state of defence, and make the nation respected abroad. Besides this, there was needed, in their opinion, a more efficient government at home. The dis- orderly scenes witnessed at Gibeah were not to be easily for- * If rfiunuel nude these appointnipnts without the concurrent ¥0103 of the people, the tiansactiou was a inaiiiiest (ie[>arturo from the institutions and tlie examt)l(> of Moses, and indicated a criminal nej^lect ot duty on their part. If they participated iii the a[)pointnionts, they should have blamed themselves as well as Samuel for the faulty selection, and been more cnutious in future. In Vither cnse, the circumstancea betokened a declining coivmonwcalth. 8 158 DEMOORAGY OF OIIKISTIANITY, gotten, nor the desolating civil war which grew out of that out- rageous and disgraceful transaction, to say nothing of the shameless perversion of justice even now suffered, under the mal-administration of the sons of Samuel ! What harm could there be in having a king? Had not Moses evidently antici- pated this very emergency and given directions for their course on such an occasion ? Had they not a right to avail themselves of the protection within their reach ? Was it not the prerog- ative of the strong to protect and command ? Was it not the privilege and duty of their brethren, reverently to bow down to them and obey them ? Wliat could be more evident than the divine right of kings ? And was it not high time to bestir themselves Avhen Nahash, the king of the children of Ammon had already taken the field against them, and they had no king to hft a finger against him, to levy an army, or take a single measure for the national defence ? Thus, we may suppose, the elders of Israel may have argued, and they may have been very confident of desiring, ardently, the greatest amount of good. W^hether some secret, lurking hope of obtaining the royal crown themselves, or, like the two sons of Zebidee, of beino- promoted to high posts of honor under it, mif>-ht not have given, unconsciously to themselves, an edge to their patriotic zeal, on this occasion, we may conjecture, if we cannot judge. « But the thing displeased Samuel when they said. Give us a kino- to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the I.ord. And the Lord saicf unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the peo- ple, in all that they say unto thee, for they have not rejected thee but me, that 'I should not reign over them. According to all the works that they have done, since the day that I have brought them up out of Egypt, even unto this day, wherewith they' have foisaken me, and served other gods, so do they also tmto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice, yet sol- emnly protest unto them, and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them."—/. Samuel, viii. C>-9. There are some, in modern times, who would restrict the suffrao-e of the citizens to those who show their competency by making a right use of it. Who they would appoint to be a judge in this matter, or by whom or in what manner such a DEMOCKACV OF CHRJSTIANITV. 159 censor should be selected, they do not inform iis. But they insist that it is inconsistent for any to one reprove the people for tlieir v.icked voting, and yet concede to them the right of voting. Yet Samuel was directed to protest against the vote given on this occasion, while at the same time, he was not to call in question their prerogative of acting, nor to interpose, ex- cept by solemn protestation, between them and their wishes. This was not conceding their right to act wrong, but only their right to act; along with their consequent right to " eat," as they must needs do, " the fruit of their own way, and" to "be filled with their own devices." To Samuel, with all his pro- phetic inspiration, the prerogative was not committed, of say- ing to the elders or to the people »f Israel, "You are not com- petent to vote, because you vote wrong, and I interpose my royal veto against your proceedings and annul them," ;N^t even when they Avere so insane and wicked as to choose a kino-, and thereby rebel against God; and subvert, in a measure, their own liberties, would God permit the popular vote to be set aside by an autocratic reversal. " And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the peo- ple that asked of him a king. And he said. This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen, and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint liim captains over thousands, and captains over fifties, and will set them to ear his ground and to reap his harvests, and to make his instruments of war and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers, and he w^ill take your fields, and your vine- yards and your oliye yards, even the best of them" and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers and to his ser- vants. And he w-ill take your men-servants, and your maid-ser- vants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep, and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day, be- cause of your kino' which ye have chosen you, and the^Lord will not hear you in that day." — v, 10-18. The graphic and divinely inspired picture of monarchical "in- stitutions, recorded in the holy Scriptures for the instruction 1(30 DEMOCKAGY OF GHIUSIIANITV. and admonition of all to .vliom the sacred volume has been sent, stands justified by the history of almost every kmgly gov- ernment from that day to the present. Who can read it with, out perceiving that arrangements of such a general bearing and tendency, as here set forth, are not in accordance with the divine will, as revealed in the Bible ? " And as these are the natural effects of too great power, entrusted with a fallen creature, we ought, consequently to pre- fer those limitations and restrictions, which are equally beneh- cial to the governors and the governed."— Sco^^^ Commentary. In this picture of monarchy we may notice the absence of all that which should mainly or exclusively characterize a just civil government. IS^ot a word is said respecting the execu- ting of justice between a man and his neighbor; but instead ofthis, weperceive a new element introduced, an idea alto- gether adverse from that which recognizes the community as identical with the government, and the rights of each member of the community the grand object of attention and care. There is now a government, in distinction from the community, and this government, not the community or its individual members, be- comes the object of attention and regard. Tlik government too becomes identical with the exalted personage that repre- sents and administers it; ^25 glory, his splendor, his emolu- ment, his luxurious gratification, his projects of ambition, his equipao'e,hisfacihtiesfor military display and military achieve- ment, Absorb the national attention. This implies and involves a splendid retinue, hordes of officials, dependents and menials, servility, degradation, loss of self-respect, venality, meanness, false honor, the ascendancy of the artificiatthe destruction of the natural, the multiplication of non-producers, the diminution of producers. There is involved moreover the corrupting pow- er of executive patronage and favoritism, needless officers, high salaries, exactions upon exactions, inequality, injustice, oppres- sions, discontent, concealment, the loss of liberty, the loss of manUness, the loss of virtue. When was there ever a monar- ch on earth, of which these were not the legitimate fruits? Thus warned, who that fears God or regards man would not pray to be delivered from such a visitation? DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 161 " Nevertheless, the people refused to obey the voice of Sam- uel, and they said, Nay, but we will have a king over us, tliat we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles." — v. 19, 20. The fooUsh vanity of making a show like other people, the wilhngness to throw off the laborious and restraining responsi- bilities and activities of democratic self government, (requiring patience and virtue) together with a taste for mihtary display and adventure, are mournfully prominent in this answer. Whenever, in any democracy, such sentiments are found to preponderate, the spirit of free institutions is languishing. The people of Israel had their choice. God provided for them a king, but sent them by the prophet Samuel, the mes- sages of his displeasure. " And Samuel called the people of Israel together at Mis- peh ; and said unto the children of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all kingdoms, and of them that oppressed you. And ye have this day rejected your God who himself saved you out of all your adversities and your tribulations, and ye have said unto Him, Nay, but we will have a king over us. — /. Sam, x. 17-19. On another occasion, Samuel said unto them : " And when ye saw that Nahash, the king of the children of Ammon came against you, ye said unto me. Nay, but a king shall reign over us ; when the Lord your God ivas your King! Now, therefore, behold the king whom ye have chosen, and whom ye have desired! and behold, the Lord hath set a king over you. * "^ ^' Now therefore stand still and see this great thing, which the Lord will do, before your eyes. Is it not wheat harvest, to-day ? And I will call unto the Lord, and he shall send thunder and rain, that ye -may perceive and see that your ivickedness is great, which ye have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking you a king. So Samuel called upon the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people greatly feared the Lord, and Samuel. And the people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God, that we die not, for we have added unto all our sins this evil, to ask us a king." — /. Sam. xii. 12-19. In answer to the prayers of Samuel, as the history seems to intimate, God spared the lives of the people, and promised 162 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. tlicm His protection, notwithstanding this instance of rebellion, provided they Avould obey Him in future, but adding, " If ye shall siill do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king." The natural fruit of their folly, they were, however, destined to reap. Their liberties, subverted in a day, revolving centuries never restored. The prophetic warnings of Samuel were more than realized. So far from consolidating the na- tion by a stronger government, that very arrangement rent the nation in twain. Under the democratic commonw^ealth they had been, wdth temporary interruptions, united for about four centuries. Under the monarchy they were kept together but one, at the close of which the oppressions predicted by Sam- uel, and the consequent claims of rival aspirants, occasioned the revolt of the ten tribes. Two dynasties, thenceforward, perpetuated the division. In a little more than two centuries after this revolt, or three hundred after the subversion of the commonwealth, the ten tribes followed their king, not to a for- eign conquest, but to a returnless captivity in Assyria. And there their history terminates ! In a little more than another century the remaining two tribes followed their captive king into Babylon, from whence only a remnant of them, seventy years afterwards, returned, but were never permanently re- stored to their national independency and security. From their own kings whose control they had coveted, and from the kings of the nations around them, whose splendor had intoxicated them, they suflered oppressions and received indignities that furnished them with a commentary upon the prediction of Samuel, and upon the corresponding message, three centuries and a half afterwards, by Hosea — " / gave thee a king in mine anger." — Hosea xiih 11. Thus we trace the bearings of the institutions of Moses upon the arrangements of monarchy — the relation of the former to the latter, w^ith the comparative influences of each upon the character and destiny of the Hebrews. The history of the de- liverance, the instruction, the civilization, the religious culture, the freedom of the children of Israel, is the history of their democratic training, their democratic institutions, their demo- DEMOCRACiT OF CHRISTIANITY. 103 cratic habits, activities and virtues. The history of their cor- ruption, decline and ruin, is the history of their seduction by the blandishments of surrounding monarchies, their dibtaste for democratic institutions, their clamor for a king, the reahzation of their wishes, and the natural results of all this in their still farther corruption, degradation and oppression, under the reign of their own and other kings, the exemplars, for the most part, as well as the scourges of their vices. CHAPTER XII. SUM3IARY VIEW.— CHASMS IN THE HEBREW IDEA OF CIVIL GOV- ERNMENT, AND ITS FUNCTIONS. We sum up, then, the main features of the Hebrew or Mosaic commonwealth by characterizing- it as a democra- cy of ihe strictest description, in which the mass of the people constituted the state, and were charged with the administration of law— either in their local congregations, or by judges elected by them— in divisions and subdivi- sions down to tens, with a general court of appeal or ref- erence, elected in like manner, with the addition of the heaven-appointed priest, who, in the absence of the art of printing, kept the authorized copy of the law. The judi- ciary, as thus described, constituted the sum total of their political organization— there being no legislature, no king, no president, no governor, no supreme chief magistrate no central government, cabinet, or council of any sort be- yond or beside the general court of reference already de- scribed, and whose functions were purely judicial. Hav- ing no legislature to guide them, the courts of justice were shut to the brief but comprehensive code of Moses — amountino- in reality to a divinely inspired digest and ex- 164 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIAKITY. emplification of Common Law — the substance and spirit of which was comprised in the one mandate to "judge the people with just judgment." Thus, as far as possible, the old autocratic and heathen notion of law, as being the creature of human volition, ca- price, enactment, decretal, convention, convenience, or compromise, was displaced; and in its stead was intro- duced the true idea of laAv as revealed in the will of God, as founded on the immutably True, the Right, the Equi- table, the Just, and as constituting a fixed and definite science, that could be taught, studied, and learned, the same in all places, and at all times. In the process of doing this, and in order to the com- pleteness and full impression of the idea, there was the the necessary absence ot a human legislature, a human king; nay, as it would seem, of a human chief magistrate of any description, at a central point, over the whole na- tion, to whom the people could reverently look up, and in whom, like the nations around them, they could find a substitute for their God ! The Mosaic idea of civil government is thus distinguish- ed from all others, by its significant chasms, its memora- ble and instructive blanks, its total and resolute ignorance of any '•'' government'''' as standing in the place of God over the people — of any human government distinguishable from the people themselves. In like manner and from the same necessity, the appro- priate sphere of civil government, its boundaries, its field, its functions were correspondingly circumscribed. From the blanks alreadj^ noticed, other blanks resulted as a matter of course. As there was no legislative body, no king, no autocratic council, no overshadowing central government, in any shape, distinct from the people them- selves, to whom the people could look up for that sort of •emi-supernatural assistance and guidance that other na- (lons expected of their governments (and that the Hebrews sought when they asked for a king) so there was no room DEMOCRACY OF CHKlSTIAiMTY. 16 left for the necromancy and legerdemain of that empirical statesmanship which constitutes so large a portion of the activities of civil government in our times, VvHth the train of artificial policy, temporary expedients, class legisla- tions, and changeful and shallow experiments that corrupt and delude the nations whom they despoil and oppress — that bring them into an abject dependence on their ^^ gov- ernments^^ for that assistance which they can receive only through their own individual self-directed industry and economy, from the good providence and overflowing bounty of their God, In all the laws and regulations provided for the Hebrews there was nothing looking in the direction either of a pro- tective or of a revenue tariff, or ot both combined. And the same Divine Wisdom that left this arrangement a blank in the Hebrew policy, took care to institute no legis- lative body, no autocratic council, no grand monarch, no central government of any description, to whom the peo- ple could look for any such arrangements, or who could give rise to any such measures at any future period, on plea of changed circumstances or necessities. Had the Hebrews remained faithful to their institutions to the present day, without any rebellious revolutions, and had their general obedience to God secured a continuance of His favor, there is no reason to think that their institu- tion of Civil Government would have been changed, except so far as the termination of the symbolical dispensation, the institution of tlie Christian Church, and the fall of the middle wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles, would have displaced what was preparatory and peculiar await- ing those events. If this view be correct, the Hebrew commonwealth perpetuated to the present day, and modi- fied only \\\ its ecclesiastical polity and in its extended fraternity to all the nations of the earth, would have pre- sented us with a nation acting on the principles of univer- sal and unrestricted free-trade. Could the Jews now be- come christianized, return to their own country, and re- 166 DEMOCRACV OF CHRISTIANITY. organize their commonwealth on the Mosaic model, so far as the clear light of the gospel would permit, the same result would be reached. The code of Moses would supply them with no tariff — the spirit of Christianity would re- quire none, (not to say, here, that it would forbid any) — and they would have no legislature or autocrat to enact any, nor could it be done without a total subversion of their polity, and the introduction of a rival idea of law. According to the Hebrew idea of law and of legislative power, so laboriously and skilfully taught them both in their early training and m their institutions, no such thing as a tariff of duties on imported merchandize could, by any possibity, be legislated or decreed into valid law, not beino- of the material of which law consists. The same course of remarks might be made in respect to all those class legislations, legalized monopolies, exclu- sive privileges and inequalities that disfigure and swell the statute books of modern nations. The Mosaic code made no provision for any thing of the kind, being simply occupied with executing judgment (justice) between a man and his neighbor — protecting every man's rights and taking for granted that, with this protection he was com- petent to direct his own industry, select his own avoca- tions, and take care of his own interests. If there are seeming exceptions to this remark they are only such, confirming the rule, and resting on the temporary and the transient for their temporary basis. Whatever of ordinary taxation was provided for, under the Mosaic code, was provided for in the form of a direct tax apportioned on income. (Deut. xviJi. 20, 21.) Wheth- er this tithe were at all for civil purposes, and whether it were to be forcibly collected, are points that may admit of argument, and will be glanced at, perhaps, in another con- nexion. It is manifest that their civil government could not have been expensive, being only a judiciary on the simplest and cheapest plan. In our modern estimates of the expenses of civil crovernment, we do not include court-fees and the DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 167 costs of liticration. Tt is not easy to see that the Hebrews in time of peace had any other expenses of government, during the commonwealth, than those of the judiciary ; and judicial services on the Hebrew plan, if not entirely gratuitous, could not have been costly. There was no king, council, president, governor, or legislature, either to be salaried or to levy taxes. The tithe, however ex- pended, was not levied at human discretion, or by vote or decree of the receivers. Divine Wisdom, in that case, fixed the amount, and there was no state or national gov- ernment to add to it afterwards. There was no navy or standing army to be supported, and no provision was made for the expenditure, in the code of Moses 5 neither was any man compelled to serve in war. (Deut. xx. 5-8.) Neither was there any tax for purposes of education, unless indeed the tithes of the priests and Levites (peculiar to the typical dispensation and ending with it) be claimed to have been of that character. Much is indeed said of the education of children, but the connection and the man- ner do not convey the impression that civil government was intrusted with the charge of it. A civil government as a central and overshadowing body, distinct from the people, did not exist, and was not authorized— either king, president, governor, council or legislature—and conse- quently there were to be no such dignitaries to superin- tend public education, to direct its modes, to authorize its teachers, to levy taxes for supporting them, or to appoint the overseers or superintendents in the different tribes, cities, towns, and villages. No one will suppose that the judiciary, as organized" among the Hebrews, had the su- perintendency of education. No such record is found, no such fact existed, and no such action was provided for. We hear indeed of schools of the prophets that appear to have been voluntarily supported, and partly at least by the manual labor of bjth tutors and pupils ; but without the least intimation of their being sppported by liie pub- J.68 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. lie funds, even in the days of the Ivings. (I Kings ii. 3-5 ; vi. 1-5.) The Mosaic law of education runs thus : "And these words which 1 command thee, shall be in thy heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and thou shait talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and wiien thou risest up." — Deut, vi. 6-7 ; also xi. 19. The language seems to refer the responsibility of edu- cation to the head of the family rather thin to the state. We notice these facts, of which the reader can make such use as he judges proper, in disposing of the remarkable blanks in the Mosaic idea of civil government, as com- pared with the views commonly entertained. Beside the tithe on income there was, however, a poll tax, assessed by express divine command, on one particular oc- casion, recorded in the thirtieth chapter of Exodus. The male population capable of military service were number- ed, and each one, rich or poor, was amerced in the sum of half a sheckel — about thirty-five cents — as •' an offering to the Lord, to make an atonement for their souls." This was appropriated to the service of the tabernacle of the congregation. The smallness of the sum prevented it from being burthensome to any. The symbolical refer- ence to a spiritual redemption, an atonement, a ransom, conveyed an impressive recognition of the equal value of the souls, whether of rich or poor, to be redeemed, and of the merciful provision which places that redemption with- in the reach of all^ — another lesson of human equality and brotherhood, and of the impartial care of the Great Father of all men. DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIAMTV. 169 CHAPTER Xlll- THE ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY OF THE HEBREWS, The Ecclesiastical arrangements of the Hebrews, as established by Moses, claim attention in this discussion, not merely on account of their own intrinsic importance, but in reference to the bearing they may be supposed to have upon the laws and institutions of the common wealth. Hitherto we have confined our attention to that part of the Mosaic code which we denominate the Civil, in dis- tinction from the Ecclesiastipal, and we have carefully excluded from the former whatever we supposed to be in- cluded properly in the latter, not excepting those religious and ritual canons that appear to have been authoritatively enforced by the civil magistrate. We have done this to prevent needless confusion, and because we wished to exhibit the civil institutions of Moses as they would ap- pear without the ecclesiastical ingredients which we be- lieved to have been temporary in their design, and inten- ded to have been done away at the coming of the Messiah, and on the completion of the great work which those pre- paratory institutions symbolized. Of this omission we have given occasional notice as vve passed along, and have intimated our intention to supply it in its proper place. Having disposed of the former part of the discussion, so far as it could be done without attending to the latter, we now come to examine it, as was proposed, and is need- ful. It may be thought by the reader that the democratic aspect of the civil code and polity when separately con- sidered, might differ wid£ly, perhaps, from the aspect of the ecclesiastical polity, and likewise from that of the civil, when botii of them shall be contemplated as combined. This apprehension we shall now have occasion to test. There is perhaps a common impression that the eccie- 170 DE3I0CRACY OF CHRISTIANITY siastical polity of the Hebreu's was at the farthest possible remove from any thing democratic, and that the union of the ecclesiastical polity with the civil, was a still farther illustration of such departure. It is well known that those in the Christian community who are partial to hierarchal arrangements, and who feel pressed with the democratic aspect of the New Testament churches, are wont to resort, eagerly, to the Jewish priesthood for the precedent and the supposed pattern of their usages. The advocates of enforced reii Tioas establishments, or the union of the civil with the eccfesiastical power, are accustomed likewise, in the same manner, to revert back to the Old Testament dispensation for the supposed model and warranty of their institutions. With how much propriety such appeals from the manifest bearing of the newer, the perfected institutions of relig- gion may be made to the earlier, the obviously and avow- edly preparatory, is one question that deserves our atten- tion. And another is, with how much success the appeal, though never so legitimate, could be urged in vindication of the usages and institutions so much desired. On each of these questions we shall seek light as we pass along, while making it our main endeavor to ascertain and exhibit the ecclesiastical polity of the Hebrews, and its connexion with the civil polity, just as it was, along with the true ground and reason of those arrange- ments, whether temporary or permanent. In the commencement of our examination of the institutions of Moses, we took occasion to remark upon the necessary and important distinction between the permanent and the temporary, the universal and economy which was to be regarded as preparatory the peculiar. We noticed that aspect of the xMosaic to a better dispensation, " a shadow of good things to come," as symbolical and prophetic representation by rit- uals, priesthoods, and propitiatory sacrifices, which on the coming of the one Great High Priest the offering of the one Great Sacrifice for sin, was to ''vanish away." We DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 171 hinted indirectly at this, and now revert to it again, for the purpose of showing and of keeping in mind, one fact of vital importance to the success of our investigations, namely, the temporary character of the peculiar ecclesias- tical arrangements of the Hebrews, and their termination at that precise point when their end was accomplished, in pre-figuring the advent and expiatory death of the Messi- ah. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in the New Testament, unfolds clearly the whole subject, and insists upon it with great force. If the view there taken be admitted, then the distinction we have drawn becomes apparent, and that which in our consideration of the civil code of iMoses, we have left out^ as temporary, is ascer- tained to have been so. Otherwise the rituals, the priest- hoods, the ecclesiastical polity of the Hebrews, become for aught we know, as permanent and as universal as any part of the code, including the decalogue, and we must take it all or none, just as it is, and- include the whole of it or none at all, in our version and exposition of Moses. This, then, is our apology, if any be needed, for introducing Avhat may at first sight appear to be an abstruse and contested point in theology, in no wise involved in a discussion of the democracy of Moses. The reader, who will of course examine the institutions of Moses, Avith his own eyes, must concede to us the same privilege, when we confess, frankly, that we should despair of finding any intelligible clue to them, or of bearing to decide how much of democracy or of anti-democrac}" is to be predicated of them, unless Ave may take along Avith us the Epistle to the Hebrews, and kindred poj-tions of Scripture, to tell us what iMoses meant^ by those hereditary priesthoods^ AA'ith the enforced rituals and religious observances connected Avith them, and for Avhat purposes and how long he intended them to be preserved. If they Avere to be permanent, (as tlie modern Jews think, Avho reject the doctrine of the Epistle to the Hebrews,) then Ave may arrive at one conclusion, but if, as that Epistle teaches, they Avere transient, and if Ave can see why they were so, then Ave may arrive at another. If the New 172 DEMOCKACi^ OF CHRISTIANITY. Testament, as all Christians believe, contains a clearer and more mature and full revelation of the divine plan than the Old, then the Old is to be interpreted in the light of the New. And if the New Testament, as is generally admitted, breathes the spirit of democracy, then that same spirit cannot be sup- posed to have been outraged in the Old, though perhaps less clearly and fully developed and exemplified. Conceiving as we do that the involved and enigmatical dra- ma of the Old Dispensation runs onward into the New, and that the grand denouement of the plot is to be found no where but in the one Sacrifice of the true High Priest on Calvary, it would be frivolous for us to approach the intricacies of the Old Dispensation, especially its Levitical priesthoods and sacrifices, (symbolical and prophetic as we deem them) with any pre- tence of exhibiting their character, or their bearing upon the civil polity of Moses, unless we could be permitted to bring to them the only key that we consider competent to unlock and open them. The reader, whatever his religious sentiments may be, is entitled to know the grounds upon which we treat a part of the Mosaic economy as transient and a part of it as permanent, and the rule by which we discriminate between the one and the other. Those grounds and that rule may not be satisfactory data for him, but if he would understand our analysis of Moses, he must consent to be told that they are satisfactory to us. If his rejection of our theological views constrains him to make Moses less democratic, less in unison with Jesus and the apostles — or, if he can discover some other method of avoiding such a conclusion, he will, in either case, be at liberty to do so. All we ask is, that he will accompany us to our solution, and judge for himself, whether the key we use is not conformed to the lock, and Avhether he can discover a better one. To understand the Levitical priesthood we must look back- ward, as well as forward, and ponder each successive act of the drama. The fall of our first parents, the apostacy of the whole human family, the penal sentence of the law, the early intim.ations of a future gospel of deliverance in the seed of the DEMOCKACr OF CI1RISTIA^'TY■. IVS woraHii, that was to bruise tlie serpent's liead, the symbohc sacrifices of Abel and of Noah, all these have a chronological and philosophical connexion with the Leviticus of Moses. AVith- out the former, the lat'er could not have been. AVithout un- derstanding the antecedent, Ave shall not make ourselves mas- ters of the consequent. There is a sublime progression and development in the divine method of dealing with our lapsed race. The family institution, without any other Church, with- out any other State, appears to have been the divine school, for the antedeluvians. Then came the brief charter of civil government to "Noah and his sons," The covenant with Abraham and his posterity was the incipient measure for the oro-anization of both a Church and a Commonwealth that were o to have their common origin in a Family and to be defined and and perpetuated by family descent. This organization was perfected under Moses ; and this, in turn, (so far as forms of worship and ecclesiastical polity were concerned) was, in due time, to be superseded by the Christian Church. So that the Levitical economy was an intermediate step between the Pa- triarchal and the Apostolic. In the beginning there was only the Hneal Family. In the sequel there was to be the spiritual Church with a membership born not of the flesh, and reckoned not by descent of blood. In this intermediate organization it was natural and perhaps necessary that the idea of family affinity should be connected with and symbolize that of the af- finity of a common faith. The seed of Abraham and of Israel, according to the flesh, were specially called upon to become heirs of the faith of Abraham and Israel. Having voluntarily entered into solemn covenant to be such, they were, in outward arrangement, to be treated as such. And thus the seed ac- cording to the flesh symbolized and pre-figured the true seed according to the Spirit, and, at the same time, included it. In this way, the true idea of a Spiritual Church was, at length, elaborated in the Hebrew mind, and thence was communica- ted to other nations; and they were prepared to be told and to understand that " all are not Israel that Avere of Israel," 174 DEiaOCUACif OF CHRISTIANITY. (Rom. ix. 6,) and that those who follow the faith of Abraham are the true heirs of the promise. In the Hebrew or Mosaic economy the descendants of Abra- ham and of Israel were to stand for the Church, the chosen people of God. Like the Christian Church that it typified, it was to be, in a measure, the salt of the earth, the light of the world, to whom were committed the promises and the oracles of God, the light of divine truth, destined to enlighten, at length, the whole earth. The Hebrews were set forth to be what, in in fact they have been, the moral and religious teachers of the civilized world. The Messiah himself was to be one of them, and to set up his spiritual kingdom among them, selecting the first teachers and propagators of Christianity from among those who had best learned the symbolical lessons of Moses, the most profound and successful of whom was Paul. By these divinely commissioned Hebrew teachers of Christi- anity we are told that the priesthoods and the sacrifices of the Old economy were typical or symbolical of the One High Priesthood and universal Sacrifice of the New; that when, in the fulness of time, the divine personage symbolized made his appearance and performed his predicted work, " an high priest forever after the order of Melchizedec," "having an unchange- able priesthood," then the Levitical and Aaronic priest- hood, having accomplished its mission, " waxed old and was ready to vanish away," the first being " removed to establish the second:'— Heb. vi. 20, vii. 24, viii. 13, x. 9, &c. Under the old economy, the high priest officiated as the symbol- ical mediator of that covenant, whereby the people were impres- sively taught their own moral defilement and unfitness to ap- proach the Infinite purity without the intervening mediatorship of the Messiah who was to come. Under the New economy Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the New Covenant was fully re- vealed, and thenceforward the typical high priesthood of the Aaronic succession was abolished, and believers encouraged to " enter with boldness into the holiest, by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh."— He^^. x. 19-20. And accord- DEMOCRACY OF CUKISTIAKITV. 115 ingly when Jesus expired on the cross, " the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom," in token that the symbol was now to be removed, and not long after the tem- ple itself was destroyed, in fulfilment of divine prediction, the holy city trodden under foot, the Levitical priesthood scattered the winds of heaven, and the daily sacrifice taken away. If this be not the true solution of the Levitical enigma — if this be not its meaning, its office, its nature, its design, its use, its mission, its history, its termination — upon what theory, by what analogies, in the light of what prophecies, what Scripture declarations, or by what philosophy, shall the solution be sought? What did the system teach? And why, if it were ever needed at all, is it not needed now ? If this be not the true account of the Leviticus of Moses what account shall be given of it? Shall w^e come to the deistical conclusion that it is only a relic of ancient barbarism and superstition? Or to the conclusion of an inveterate Juda- ism, that clamors for its priesthoods and its sacrifices still, though its Aaronic succession is lost, and no son of Abraham or of Jacob can stand up, and lay claim under the law of Mo- ses, to the office of High Priest ? If such be not the Leviticus of Moses, then its hereditary priesthoods, its enforced rituals, no longer to be regarded either as prophetic or symbolic, must stand as literal but inexplicable verities, perpetual but meaningless institutions, interminable and ultimate but forever unintelhgible facts. Then, likewise, we have the continued separation of the Jew^s from the Gen- tiles, by Divine authority, and the exclusion of the latter from the chief blessings promised them through Abraham, notwith- standing the repeated intimations of the ancient prophets in their favor. The task of bringing light out of such darkness, order out of such confusion, or harmony out of such discord, w^e could not have the courage to attempt. Nor could we un- dertake to reconcile the ecclesiastical polity of the Hebrews, as thus construed, with their civil code or to challenge for it the democratic character that, everywhere else, has so signally 176 DEMOCRACY OF CHRlSTlAKITY. appeared. The wards of the lock do not yield to such a key. The secrets of the inner sanctuary are all unrevealed We must be permitted then, to avail ourselves of the key furnished by the Epistle to the Hebrews, and with which the rich treasures there exhibited, were disclosed. Understanding the Levitical economy to have been Avhat the writer of that Epistle makes it, a far difterent scene opens on our vision. The Levitical and Aaronic priesthood represented, not the dig- nity of the house of Aaron, or of the house of Levi, exalted above their equal brethren, but only shadowed forth, as in an instructive allegory, the priestly dignity of Jesus Christ, to whose higher representative Melchizedec, Levi himself, as it were, in the loins of his father Abraham, paid tithes, with the rest of his hrethren ! " For [says the writer] it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda, of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood. And it is yet far more evident, for that after the similitude of Melchizedec there ariseth another -pY'iest, who was made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. For he testifieth. Thou art a priest forerer, after the order of Melchizedec." — Heh. vii. 14-17. Thus fades the fancied glory of the Hebrew priesthood, and thus its artificial pride withers, Avhen its true mean- ing is revealed, in the light of the cross of Christ. It was sim- ply a method of teaching, and the lesson taught was the very reverse of any thing like the exaltation of man over man — it was the lesson that all men, the entire brotherhood of the hu- man family, polluted as they were by sin, stood in need of one and the same High Priest. Mediator, and Sacrifice, Jesus Christ. The peisons selected to teach this symbohcal lesson were themselves in need of the teaching, and to them as well as to their equal -brethren was the lesson given, for " they; needed daily, to offer up sacrifices, /r^^; /or their own sins and then for the sins of the people." — v. 27. As well might the person who was designated to set up the brazen serpent in the wilderness exalt himself over his brethren on account of that circumstance — as well might the man appointed to hold up a book or picture for DE310CRACY OF CHKISTIAMTY. 177 the use of his brethren, or to carry them a pitcher of cold water when they were thirsty, attempt to lord it over them, and swell with conscious dignity on the merit of su- perior caste, as for a high priest of the Aaronic succession to sit up similar pretensions on account of his work. If he understood his vocation, he would count himself " ser- vant of all." And lest this matter should be misunder- stood, God took care that the Great High Priest thus ty- pified should not spring out of Levi but out of Judah, of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning the priesthood. Still farther, he should be after the succession of one to whom Levi had paid tithes, and not after the order of Aaron! All this, as the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews well knew, would grate harshly on the aristocratic ears of the inflated Jewish priesthood, who totally misunderstood their position. But in no other way than by this humili- ating and truly democratic lesson could he begin to teach them what their own priesthood boasted meant. Until they could be made to see that it did not exalt them above their brethren, they could not be made to understand its true meaning. And until the Hebrew people could be made to see this and cease their idolatrous veneration of their sym- bolical priesthood, they could never appreciate the one high priesthood of Christ, nor receive the benefits of his sacrifice. Thus instructed in respect not only to the design and significancy of the Hebrew priesthcod, but in respect, like- wise, to the consequent relation of the priests to their equal brethren, we are prepared, as we could not other- wise be, to take up in detail the provisions of the Mosaic code on this subject, and dispose of them in the light of the principles and objects upon which tiie institu- tion was founded. In no other way can the details of any other institution be satisfactorily explained, especially after the lapse of^ages, and its long disuse or abroga- tion. First, then, we are to inquire, after the elements and the 1Y8 DEMOCKACV OF CHRISTIANITY. organization of the Hebrew priestliood, as provided for by the polity of Moses. "And thou shalt take unto thee Aaron, thy brother, and his sons with him, from among the children of Israel, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office, even Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazur and Ithamar, Aaron's sons." — Ex. xxviii. 1: xxix. ], kc. An account of the consecration of Aaron and his sons, by Moses, in the presence of all the congregation, will be found in the eighth chapter of Leviticus. They were washed with water; Aaron was clothed with the priestly robes, and girded with the ephod, and he put the breast- plate upon him, the Urim and the Thummim, the Mitre, the golden plate, the holy crown, as the Lord com- manded Moses. He was then anointed with the holy oil and sprinkled with the blood of the bullock, the sin-offer- ing. In the seventeenth chapter of Numbers we have an ac- count of the method God took, in the sight of the people, to designate whom he had chosen for the peculiar ser- vice of the symbolical priesthood and tilings pertaining thereto, by causing the rod of the house of Aaron to bud and blossom, and yield fruit in a miraculous manner, dis- tinguishing it, visibly., from the rods of the other tribes and families of Israel. Aaron was of th3 tribe of Levi, but the priesthood pro- perly so called, was confined to the house of Aaron, though the entire tribe was set apart for a service auxiliary to the priesthood. All the sons or male descendants of Aaron were to be priests, but Aaron and after him his eldest son, and so on, in the order of primogeniture, were to be high priests, in regular succession. "And the holy garments of Aaron shall be his sons af- ter him, to be annointed therein and to be consecrated in them. And that son that is priest in his stead shall put them on seven days, when he cometh into the tabernacle of the congregation to minister in the holy place." — Ex. xxix. 29-30. DEMUOKAOV OF OHKISTIANITY. 179 This priesthood was to be perpetual in the family of Aaron, so long as the institution was preserved. "And thou shalt bring his sons, and clothe them with coats, and thou shalt anoint them as thou didst anoint their father, that they may minister to me in the priest's office : for their anointing shall surely be an everlasting priesthood, throughout their generations." — Ex.xl. 14, 15. Such was the organization of the priesthood. There was always to be one high priest, in the order of primo- geniture from Aaron, and a priesthood consisting of all the sons and son's sons of Aaron, in perpetuity of descent and succession. Besides these were the Levites, the en- tire male posterity of Levi, not included in the priesthood proper. In the numbering of the children of Israel for military enrolment, the ti'ibe of Levi, including the priesthood, was not to be numbered, for the reason assigned, that they were appointed to another service. (Numbers i. 49, 50.) In the next chapter the statement is more full and defi- nite : "And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, Bring the tribe of Levi near, and present them before Aaron, the priest, that ilicy may minister unto him. And they shall keep his charge and the charge of the whole congregation, to do the service of the tabernacle. And thou shalt give the Levites unto Aaron and his sons, they are wholly given unto him, out of the children of Israel. ''-^Y?/???. iii. 5-9. "Ihave taken the Levites from among the children of Israel, instead of the first born that openeth the matrix, among the children of Israel, therefore shall the Levites be mine. Because all the first born are mine, for on the day that 1 smote all the first born in the land of Egypt, 1 hallowed unto me all the first born in Israel : both man and beast, mine shall they be. 1 am the Lord." — v. 12, 13. In the eighth chapter is a minute account of the conse- cration of the Levites. The ground of their separation is then again repeated with some additions. Having stated that they were taken " for all the first born of the children of Israel," it is added: " And I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and 180 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. to his sons from among the children of Israel, to do the service of the children of Israel in the tabernacle of the congregation, and to make an atonement for the children of Israel, that there be no plague among the children of Is- rael, when the children of Israel come nigh unto the sanc- tuary.'' — V. 19. The reader will here notice, again, the symbolical im- port of the Levitical separation and consecration, as well as that of the priesthood — the same adaptation to bring to mind the need of an atonement, to commemorate the literal yet allegorical deliverance in Egypt, and at the same time to furnish an additional symbol of the spiritual deliverance by the Messiah that was to come. The im- pression of the unapproachable majesty and purity of God, and the consequent necessity of a mediator was con- veyed by the entire arrangement of Levites and priest- hood. First one tribe of twelve must be selected to stand and Xo act, symbolically, instead of the nation. But not all the tribe could be admitted to the priesthood, by whom alone the sacrifices were to be offered. Only one family of the tribe, that of Aaron, was admitted, by a still more solemn and thorough consecration, to that service. But of the priesthood only one, the high priest, set apart from among the priests, could enter into the holy of holies, the inner sanctuary, and offer the great annual sacrifice, sym- bolical of the one great sacrifice of Christ. This an inge- ment harmonized with that by which, for the same great object, the beasts of Palestine were divided into the clean and the unclean, of which none but the clean eould be of- fered in sacrifice to the Infinite purity ; and not even of these, unless the individual beast selected were without blemish and perfect in its kind— the whole foreshadowing the one faultless and perfect victim, the lamb without spot, " the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." Interpreted in the light of this simple yet sublime lesson, which the whole economy was manifestly intended to DEMOCRACY- OF CHKISTI *.XITY. 181 convey, the entire stnictnre and orgmization of the He- brew hierarch}^ (if it be called such. ; had a high and sa- cred meaning — far enough removed fron^i anything like the exaltation of man over man, by the erection of a caste. It was not because the children of Abraham were better than those of Nahor, or those of Isaac better than those of Ishmael, or those of Jacob than those of Esau, or those of Levi than those of the other tribes, or those of Aaron than those of Moses, or the first born of Aaron than his other sons, that they were thus successively separated from their brethren ; but it was because God had an impressive and an all-important lesson to teach the Hebrews and all mankind by this gradation of typical separations and pu- rifications from the polluted mass of humanity, upwards, step by step, before a high priest could be selected to re- present the High Priest who was " made higher than the heavens." The Hebrew priesthood thus christianized by its con- nexion with the " better covenant," so far from teaching the pride of caste, or the separation of man from his bro- ther, teaches the opposite lesson of humiliation and broth- erhood in guilt and in hope, the distance of sinful man from his iMaker, till by the Great Mediator restored. So far from teaching servility and degrading superstition, it opens to all who will understandingly receive it, the way into the holy of holies, and unites them in a royal brother- hood of priests unto God. Take away from the Hebrew priesthood this allegorical meaning — the only meaning that can be claimed for it — divorce it from the new cove- nant, from Calvary, from Christ, and then, to be sure, you have divorced it from the wants of humanity, from the spirit of common brotherhood, you have transformed it into a grim superstition, a lordly usurpation, a degrading caste. In other language, when you have made it anti- christian, you have made it anti-democratic, of course. But such was not the meaning of Moses. He rejoiced to see the day of the Savior, he saw it and was glad. On 182 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. the mount of transfiguration, in company with Elijah, he epake of his decease, which he should accomplish at Je- rusalem, when this priesthood should be fulfilled. The ecclesiastical polity he revealed was not at war with the civil. He did not lead forth his nation from under the yoke of the Pharaohs, to mock them with the far more degrading chain of spiritual bondage. It w^as to the feet of the Messiah that he beckoned them, not to those of the sons of Aaron, of Caiaphas, or of the man of sin. The Hebrews who read not this lesson in the typical separation of the Levites and the priesthood were " blinded in their minds," as Paul testifies, and " until this day remaineth the same vail, untaken away, in the reading of the Old Testament, which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is on their heart ; nev- ertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty."' — // Corinth, iii. 14-17. Nothing but this same vail on the minds of a nom- inal Christian church and ministry, sensualized by the love of the world, could ever have deluded them with the notion that a Christian hierarchy must needs succeed to the Jewish, or be engrafted upon it — that the latter was a be- fitting pattern and legitimate precedent and warranty of the former. When the One Great Propitiatory Sacrifice and High-priesthood of Calvary shall have become anti- quated and obsolete, to be rejected as a stumbling-block or derided as foolishness — when that " unchangeable priesthood" shall have run out or require to be new mod- elled, and when in consequence it shall have become needful to foreshadow and symbolize some great future manifestation of a still higher priesthood and more costly sacrifice yet unrevealed — then, but not sooner, will it be- come congruous or comely, significant or allowable, to construct another human priesthood, after the manner of Aaron and Levi. Whenever constructed, it can have no DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 183 validity except by appointment of Him who caused Aa- ron's rod to bud, to blossom, and to bring forth ahnonds. It must be attested to mankind by some miracle equally convincing and unimpeachable. And it must be a priest- hood for the offering of symbolical offerings and sacrifi- ces, not for the mere chattering of the masses, nor for the purpose, with or without the mass, to lord it over God's heritage. " For every high priest taken from among men is or- dained for men, in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for si?is, who can have com- passion on the ignorant, and them that are out of the way, for that he also is compassed with infirmity, [not claiming his seat as the just prerogative of his heroism and royal powers] and by reason hereof, he ought, as for the people, so also for himself iooffer for sins ^ [thus recognizing his equality with them.] And no man taketh this honor to himself, but he that was called of God, as was Aaron." Over and above all this, when this future hierarchy, heaven-ordained and duly attested, comes into being, it must not take the distinctive name of Christian^ for it will have arisen upon the assumption that the Christian high priesthood had turned out to be a failure — that so much, at least, of the Christian dispensation had proved transient, and something better was coming in its stead. No Chris- tian hierarchy or exclusive priesthood, that is, no such priesthood in the line of succession from Christ and his apostles (if Paul understood the matter) can claim to have been derived from, or rest upon Levi and Aaron ; for Christ was " a priest forever alter the order of Melchizedec," and not after Aaron or Levi, who paid tithes to Melchizedec; and " our Lord sprang out of Judah, of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood !" (See Heb. v.l-G : and vii. 1-16. Tliis view of the priesthood of the-Hebrews, expounding it in the light of the Christian high priesthood which it symbolized, thus eliciting its true spiritual significancy, Ig4 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. and vindicating it from the imputation of erecting a hier- archal caste, or of furnishing a legitimate precedent for the hierarchies that in later times have been claimed to be founded upon it, is corroborated moreover by the fact that all such hierarchal arrangements among Christians, or those claiming to be such, just in proportion to the degree in which the iiierarchal principle has been introduced, have directly or indirectly displaced, superseded, or thrown into the shade, the idea of the one sole high priesthood and propitiatory sacrifice of the Messiah. And whoever, in any age of the church, or in any communion— a Luther in Germany, a Lefevre in France, a Bunyan in England, or a Roger Williams in America— would erect a standard against hierarchal usurpation, must inscribe on that stand- ard, the high priesthood of Jesus Christ. And those who, in any communion, either ancient or modern, even the most simple, the most democratic, have permitted that great idea to fade out of their minds, or wlio have virtually explain- ed it away, have commonly though perhaps insensibly be- come less democratic in their tastes, less jealous of hier- archal arrangements and the superintendency of religion by the state, less satisfied with democratic ascendency in civil and ecclesiastical affliirs, more prone to idolize dis- tinguished men, to magnify heroes, to canonize saints, to bow down before the supposed divine right of kings, and (in modern times) to lament the want of veneration that prevents the later generations from being as confiding, in this respect, as their forefathers. As illustrations of the closing remark, we might cite the writings of Dr. Pusey and of Thomas Carlyle. Those diverge farthest from the spirit of democracy who learn least of the profound lesson involved in the Levitical priesthood. These reficctions have been suggested, in connexion with the statement we have taken from the scriptures, of the elements and the organization of the Levitical and Aaronic priesthood. We have been led to anticipate, in some measure, what would perhaps have been more ap- DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 185 propriate under our second inquiry, namely : What was the official work of the priests and the Levites ] The scriptures already cited have furnished the main answer to this question. " Every high priest taken from among men is ordained * * that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins." Again : "Every priest standeth daily ministering and offering o^'tentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins : but this man [Jesus] after he had offered one sacri- fice for sins, forever sat down at the right hand of God." —Heb. X. 11, 12. There must be admitted therefore to be a self-consis- tency in those priesthoods succeeding the Jewish and os- tensibly founded in part upon it, which profess to make a sacrifice for sins, and to pardon or remit them. A priest- hood that cannot claim to do this, either symbolically and prophetically, or really and in the present tense, must fail of reaching its mark and become abortive. The Hebrew priesthood exercised, however, the addi- tional vocation of teaching. The written copy of the law and all the symbolical paraphernalia and emblems of their religion were committed to their keeping. These they were to preserve, to study, to explain. This we learn from the prophets as well as from Moses : "For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts." — Mai. ii. 7. "And that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses." — Lev. X. 11. In connexion with the text first cited the inspired pro- phet sharply rebukes the priests for their neglect of this duty, and similar rebukes are found in the other prophets. This class of facts reminds us that the sons of Levi and Aaron, though specially set apart for the work of reli- gious instruction, were not exclusively commissioned, and held no official monopoly of teaching. Very few of the inspi- red prophets were cither priests or Levites. Amos was a herdsman of Tekoa, a gather of Sycamore fruit, or wild 186 DEMOORAOY OF CHRISTIANITY. figs ; yet he boldly reproved priests and kings. Solomon, | though not of the priestly tribe, was emphatically " the preacher " of his times, and dedicated the temple by pub- lic prayer in presence of the priests. Nehemiah is sup- posed to have been of the tribe of Judah— very evidently he was not a priest — yet he abounded in religious exhor- tations and preaching, had priests among his auditors, and addressed to them especially his solemn admoni- tions. (Neh. v. 12.) Even in the offering of sacrifices, the general rule re- stricting it to the priesthood must have admitted of some exceptions, or we should not read of the repeated sacrifi- ces of Samuel, who certainly was not a priest, though supposed by some to have been of the lineage of Levi, notwithstanding the text calls him an Ephrathite, (I. Sam. i. 1.) Elijah, whose parentage is unknown, oftered sac- rifices, likewise. The authority, power, and prerogatives of the priest- hood, is another interesting topic of inquiry. From the account already given, of the civil polity of Moses, it is evident that their authority, whatever it might be, could lie very little in that direction, beyond the matter before alluded to, in respect to the court of final reference or ap- peal, which was to be composed of the regularly elected judge in connexion with the priest. (Deut. xvii. 12.) With this exception the jurisdiction of the priest appears to have been almost wholly confined to things pertaining to the ritual services, symbolical observances, or matters nearly connected with the same. Thus the law of lepro- sy, the law of jealousy, somewhat peculiar in their pro- visions, were administered by the priests. False witnes- ses were to be examined and sentenced by the concurrent action of the judges and the priests. (Deut. xix. 18.) Those very limited civil functions were purely judicial, so far as they could be considered civil functions at all. As to the Levites, in distinction from the priests, no one who takes pains to run over the inventory of the DEMOORAOY OF CHRISTIANITY. 187 heavy and cumbersome articles committed to their exclu- sive custody, which they alone were to touch, to handle, to carry, to use ; the ark, the tabernacle, with all that ap- pertained to them, the care of the altar, the furniture, the killino- of animals for sacrifices, the removal of the offal, the cleansing of the sanctuary, including all the service of the priests and of the congregation, in respect to their burdensome service, will be tempted to regard their vo- cation a sinecure, or their position one to be envied by the ambitious aspirant after power. The Levites were por- ters, bearers of burdens, chiefly devoted to laborious and muscular service, much of what would now be accounted menial. From some incidental expressions in the subse- quent history it would seem that they were however re- garded as the associates or assistants of the priests in the work of religious teaching. Portions of the Levites seem also to have been associated with the singers, or to have constituted the choirs and musical bands. Their station, in some respects, was analagous to that of our modern door keepers and sextons. When ecclesiastical ambition emulates the hierarchy of the Hebrews, it is not, probably, with an eye to the posi- tion of Levites, who must have been far mo e numerous than the priesthood proper. The exhortation not to for- sake theLevite, butto mvite him along with the widow and the fatherless, at feasts, ''that he may eat and be satis- fied," '' because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee," (Deut. xiv. 27-29,) does not convey the impression that they were expected to be a bloated and lordly aris- tocracy, before whom the masses of the people were to bow down in abject submission, and do idolatrous homage. And this brings us to a consideration of the pecuniary provision made for the ecclesiastical polity of the Hebrews. We have said, in another connexion, that the expenses of the Hebrew civil list could not have been burthensome, there being nothing requiring support except the local courts of justice and the one court of reference or appeal. 188 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITT Wa have failed indeed to discover any provision or ap' propriation for the support of these, and the judges were explicitly prohibited from taking gifts. Whether this was intended to prohibit a regular fee for trying causes we would not adventure t© determine, but it seems re- markable that no regulation in respect to it should be re- corded, if there were any. Is it not possible that the mi- nute distribution of judiciary service among the people, by electing a judge for each band of ten citizens, would so divide the labor that it would be gratuitously perform- ed 1 U so, we seem to have found a civil government free of charge ! Be this as it may, the tithe, or tenth, appears to have been paid into the hands of the priests and Levites — the entire tribe of Levi, including the family of Aaron. It is however to be borne in mind that this was not merely in compensation for their services. It came likewise in the room of their portion of the land of Canaan when it was divided among the other tribes, the whole tribe of Levi being expressly excluded from any share in that division, so far as farms were concerned, in consideration of this tithe. A number of cities (or villages) were however given to them for their residences, and these dwellings had the benefit of the law of the jubilee, like the land. The priests had likewise certain portions of the meat of- fered in sacrifice, for their food. (See Numb, xviii. 20- 32: Deut. xviii. 1-8; Numb. xxxv. 6, &;c. : Lev. xxv. 32, (fee.) This arrangement, in connexion with the work assign- ed to them, excluded them from the profits of agriculture, and, as is commonly understood, from those of manufac- tures and commerce. We hear of no princely ecclesias- tical palaces among them, during the commonwealth, like some modern ones that might be mentioned, and whose occupants claim the Hebrew hierarchy as their pattern. The revenues of the Christian bishops of the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, must have contrasted DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 189 Strongly with those of the Hebrew priests, the amount of their receipts being as unbounded as the infatuation of the devotees who idolized them, and who seem to have supposed their' own title to heaven made sure, in propor- tion to the amount of their gifts to the priests. Against this madness, the fixed and dsterminate ratio of payment in the Hebrew polity was well calculated to interpose a preventive, as well as against the exorbitant and corrupt- ing wealth of one portion of the priesthood, while another portion was left in a state of servile dependence and want. That no abuses crept in, we may not suppose. There must have been specimens of rapacious priests, who grasped after all they could get, as well as of covetous laymen who withheld their tithes. Both these were in fact visited with prophetic reproofs. What measures, if any, were taken or were authorized to be taken, to enforce or compel the unwilling payment of tithes, the writer is unable to state. He has met with no Hebrew statute on that subject. He recollects no inci- dent of the history illustrative of the process of distraint for tithes unless it be that recorded of the graceless sons of Eli, who forfeited their priesthood and paid their lives as the price of their rapaeity and licentiousness. (I. Sam. ii. 12-17, also 22-36.) Of the forcible seizure and sale of furniture, goods, or estates, by the officers of '■'■govern- ment^^ to pay the priests' tithes, the annals of the Hebrew commonwealth furnish no instances. Nor do those of any of the royal dynasties, unless Ahab's seizure of Na- both's vineyard be claimed as a precedent, a fast having been proclaimed in that connexion. But if that were an ecclesiastical distraint, which seems improbable, the priesthood of Baal and not of Jehovah must have been the recipients. The prophetic reproofs of those who wrongfully withheld tithes convey the impression that the promises, the threatenings, and the Providential dis- pensations of Jehovah were more relied upon than the warrants of majristrates and the seizures of bai- 190 DEMOCRAOY OF CHRISTIANITY. liffs, in the process of collection. (!See Malachi iii. 8-12.) . A novel phenomenon would be witnessed should some of our modern religious establishments, that of the Church of England, for example, from the portals of her episco- pal palace at Lambeth, send forth, on some befitting oc- casion, such a proclamation on the subject of needful sup- port as that which by divine direction, was uttered by the prophet Malachi to the people of Israel, either in the times of Nehemiah, or not long afterwards. The burden of this prophet to the priests, (chapter second) or his pre- diction of the refiiner's fire that was 1o purify the sons of Levi (chapter third) we could hardly ask or suppose an Anglican archbishop to repeat, officially, with much ear- nestness. But might he not be prevailed upon to repub- lish, over his episcopal seal and signature, an order of the ancient Hebrew Church on the subject of tithes, the most stringent one perhaps that can be found 1 Let us see how it would read. And let us imagine the starving operatives of Manchester and Birmingham, or perchance, a grand procession of Chartists drawn up before the priestly palace to hear the reading of it by some fat gowns- man duly decked in sacerdotal silks for the occasion. " Will a man rob God! Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say. Wherein have we robbed thee 1 In tithes and of- ferings. Ye are cursed with a curse, for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Brmg ye all the tithes into the store-house, that there may be rneat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to re- ceive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, that he shall not destroy the fruits of the ground, neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts." The dissenters in England would greet such a procla- mation from such a quarter as the presage of a return to the voluntary principle, on the part of the now Establish- ed Church. The incongruity of such an appeal from such DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANIXr. 191 a source and the absurdity of supposing that a Church Establishment in the habit of being replenished by funds extorted by the strong arm of govermnent would resort to such exhortations or trust itself and its interests upon the hold that they would take upon the consciences and af- fections of the people, is too plain and palpable to be over- looked or mistaken. And we have chosen this mode of illustration that the wide chasm between our modern church establishments and the ecclesiastical polity of the Hebrews, even after the subversion of the democratic commonwealth, might not only be seen but felt. This allusion to the voluntary principle in the support of religious institutions reminds us of certain traces of it in the economj of Moses and of the operation of it during his own lifetime and under his supervision, by command of God himself. " And Moses spake unto all the children of Israel, say- insf, This is the thing which the Lord commanded, saying, Take from amongst you an offering unto the Lord : Who- soever is of a willmg hearty let him bring it, an offering of the Lord ; gold, and silver, and brass, and blue, and pur- ple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goat's hair," «Scc. — Ex. XXXV. 4-6, The enumeration of articles proceeds at some length, specifying the principal materials for constructing the tabernacle. A similar appeal is made for the voluntary labor of the skillful, or wise-hearted, of both sexes. Then foHows in the same chapter and the next following, an ac- count of these voluntary contributions and labors. " The children of Israel brought a willing ofTering unto the Lord, every man and woman whose heart made them will- ing to bring all manner of work which the Lord had com- manded to he made by the hand of Moses." — v. 29. [And finally it became necessary to make proclamation to cease bringing,] " for the stuff which they had was sufficient for all the work, to make it, and too much.'' — xxxvi. 7. In the seventh chapter of Numbers we have an account of the voluntary offerings of the princes or principal men of Israel, "heads of the house of their fathers," on occa- 192 DEMOCRACY OF GHRISTIANITT. sion of the dedication of the sanctuary, after it was set up. These '' princes," by the bye, do not seem to have constituted a peerage or aristocracy of blood, of which the term might convey to our modern ears the impression. There were no such orders of nobility in the Hebrew commonwealth ; but there was a princely liberality ex- hibited on this occasion, and the equality of the donations denotes the absence of ostentatious emulation on the one hand, and of niggardly unwillingness on the other. Some approximation towards an equality of fortunes may also be inferred. Modern princes fatten and riot upon their oppressive extortions, under cover of civil government. These distinguished themselves by bountiful contribu- tions for public objects. ■ Examples of the voluntary principle are found in sub- sequent periods of the history, even after the subversion of the commonwealth, and under the reign of the kings, and not a few of the offerings at the sanctuary were to be " free-will offerings." Under the reign of Joash or Jehoash, the son of Aha- ziah, king of Judah, two hundred and seventeen years af- ter the subversion of the commonwealth by the corona- tion of Saul, measures were taken by the king to raise funds for repairing the temple at Jerusalem. But he did not resort to compulsory taxation, nor was the money taken out of any public treasury that could have been thus accumulated. He only directed the priests to lay up for that purpose " the dedicated things brought into the house of the Lord," * * u all the mo7iey that cometh into any mail's heart to bring into the house of the Lord.'''' After a time it was found that though the priests had been receiving the money, nothing was done towards re- pairing the house. On being called to account, a defal- cation was ascertained, and the result was a compromise. The priests consented to receive no more money, but were not lield accountable for the intended repairs ! But Jehoida, the chief priest, took a chest, bored a hole in the DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 193 ]icl, set it up beside the alcar and commenced receiving new contributions, so tliat, after a further delay, the ob- ject was accomplished. (11. Kings, xii 4i-lG, When the temple was repaired again, about two hun- dred years afterwards, in the the time of king Josiah, it was done " with the money that was brought into the house of Grod, which the Levites that kept the doors liad gathered of the hand of Manassah and Ephraim, and of all the remnant of Israel, and of all Judah and Benjamin, and they returned to Jerusalem." (II. Chron. xxxiv. 9. ^'' They returned^ Sfc. — These Levites seem to have gone through the land solicitmg contributions for the temple, even from the remnant of Israel, and they returned to Jeru- salem when they had completed that business." — Scotfs Commentary. This was in striking contrast with the present method of repairing churches in England, by church rates, voted sometimes by bare majorities, sometimes by lean minori- ties, yet enforced by the magistrate and collected of dis- senters by seizures of their effects — sometimes consisting of bedding and Bibles — and the sale of them for a fourth or tenth part of their value, at auction, amid the murmurs of the populace, very few of whom will countenance the procedure by purchasing the articles ! The temple of Solomon may have been built by his kingly revenues — better expended thus than on chariots, and horses, and harems, in direct violation of the divine commandments — but the complaints of his subjects after his death, of his heavy exactions, the pertinacity of his son in refusing to lighten their burdens, the consequent revolt of the ten tribes, and the divine prohibition of a civil war to subjugate them, seem to be connected parts of the same story, less creditable to the monarch, and less democratic than the method pursued in the time of Josiah. That the tithe was a divine and authoritative enact- ment we do not- call in question, nor that God had a right, if he saw fit, to provide for the enforcement of tiiat annual assessment by the arm of civil power. Whether He did 194 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITT. make such a provision is another question, which the rea- der can examine at his leisure. Perhaps he may discover facts in proof that have escaped the writer's attention. If it were so, the fact would be no precedent for discretion- ary human legislation in that department, without a divine warrant. The democratic principle is violated, not when God, the Supreme Lawgiver, establishes priesthoods, com- mands the enforced payment of tithes, enjoins ritual ob- servances, and the punishment of offences against reli- gion, but it is violated when man, without any divine com- mission to do so, undertakes, at his own discretion and on his own authority, to lord it over the faith of his fellow- man, by legislating in the place of God. Whether the tithe was a light tax or a heavy one it would be dfRcuIt for us to judge, unless we understoodiSetter than we do the ability of the people to pay. We may be cer- tain that God knew what was proper and best. Perhaps He meant to discourage the accumulation of needless and hurtful wealth, and to foreshadow the liberal contributions of the New Testament church, for relieving and elevating the masses of the human family. How a tenth would compare with the modern ratio of taxation, even in repub- lics, we could better compute if we could readily form any tolerably correct estimate of the amount of taxes we do pay, under our artificial, concealed, complicated, and indirect methods. Would the laborers of Ireland, England, and Scotland be starving, if all but a tenth part of their pro- ductive industry were their own 1 It remains to inquire into the conditions and tenure un- der which ecclesiastical office was held and retained in the Mosaic economy. We have seen that the appoint- ment, in the first place, came directly from God. The question now is, whether impeachment, trial, and deposi- tion were placed in the hands of any constituted human au- thorities, ecclesiastical or civil. The writer is not aware of any provision in that direction, of any record of such a procedure. DEMOCRACY OF CHTIISTIANITY. 195 ' When Nadab and Abihu profaned their sacred functions God executed summary vengeance upon them, himself, and removed them. When "two hundred and fifty prin- ces of the assembly'', famous in the congregation, men of renown," and a large company of the Levites, moved by ecclesiastical ambition, and led on by Korah, Dathan, and Abiram — the first named being the son of Izhar, the son Kohath, the son of Levi — attempted to usurp the priest- hood and eject the family of Aaron, God settled the con- troversy himself, without the aid of secular torce. When the sons of Eli disgraced their office and their father re- strained them not, the Lord intimated by the mouth of iSamuel to Eli that the priesthood should be taken away from his family, and that in token of this his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, should suddenly die — both ot them in one day — which speedily came to pass. Eli himself died on hearing the intelligence, and under the reign of Solomon another family — that of Zadoc in the lirieof Ele- azar, the son of Aaron — was promoted to the priesthood, leaving the posterity of Eli in a menial condition. (See I Samuel ii. with remarks of Scott.) In all these instances a providential retribution, in some cases miraculous, removed the offending incumbents or aspirants, without the intervention of any human judica- ture or executive, ecclesiastical or civil, unless it be con- jectured that the act of Solomon was in pursuance of Sam- uel's prophecy, in which case the act was rather executive than judicial. We can not doubt indeed that there were unworthy in- cumbents of the priestly office who were not thus removed, in any remarkablemanner, noroutof theorder of nature, but retained the office during their lives. Such were some of those reproved by the prophets ; such were the persecutors of the Savior, though the race of these was cut off, and the priestly succession forever extinguished a few years after- wards. God saw fit, for good reasons doubtless, to toler- ate, temporarily, this state of things under that peculiar 196 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. economy, and He did not judge it best to remedy this seeming evil by the perhaps greater evil of committing to the Hebrews, either in an ecclesiastical or civil capacity, the prerogative of promoting or degrading ecclesiastical functionaries at their discretion. No high priest, no pope, no ecclesiastical council or synod, no bench of cardinals, no consistory, no prelate, no board of bishops, no general assemblies, conferences, presbyteries, or yearly or quar- terly meetings — no king, no legislature, no judicial court, no civil government or functionary of any name appears, so far as we can see, to have been commissioned by God to ap- point priests or to depose them. If the jjeople were not to exercise this prerogative, it was not because the respon- sibility was to be committed to a secret few or to a priest- ly or royal one, other tiian the Supreme Lawgiver him- self. And here we find, perhaps, an additional reason why the symbolical priesthood of the Hebrews was hereditary. It was not because the Great High Priest of the new covenant was to be identified by his coming in the line of that succession — -for he did not. On the other hand, the preserved suc- cession w^as useful in demonstrating that he did ?iot come in that line, and was therefore superior to it, since it was displaced to make room for him. But how, without such a continuous and regular repetition of miracles as should impair their miraculous character and corresponding ef- fect, could Jehovah himself retain to himself that appoint- ing and deposing power which He evidently was unwilling to commit to the hands of men 1 For, let it be noted, while he did commit the election of civil magistrates to the popular vote, and while he did direct the congregation, en ?nasse, to act as a court for trying capital offences, He did not commit to the same people the election of their priests, as the election of elders and deacons was commit- ted to the common brotherhood in those churches. Why this broad distinction, in the old economy, between the popular vote in civil affairs and in ecclesiastical? The DEMOCKACr OF CHRISTIANITY. - 197 answer to this seems to be, the Hebrew cliurch, unlike the New Testament^ was not a family of a pure spiritual bro- therhood, but a family of natural descent. In a church thus constituted, the members could not be entrusted with so spiritual a function. God must needs reserve it for himself. And rather than commit it to any civil govern- ment, to any ecclesiastical functionary or body, He who knew the end from the beginning — and who foresaw all the mischiefs resulting from such unauthorized usages in the Christian church — would authorize nothing of the kind among the Hebrews, but would rather resort to the alternative of hereditary descent, under such checks as He knew His providential government could interpose. And as soon as a more spiritual church could be introduced, the church of a lineal descent was to be displaced^ together with its appropriate priesthood of i\\Q same lineal descent, and to the spiritual niembership of the New Testament church — in which there was to be neither Jew nor Greek — was to be committed, as to a brotherhood of saints^ the same privileges and responsibilities in the election of church officers that the common brotherhood of man are to exercise in civil matters — the commonwealth being composed of all its resident members and charged with the administration of justice — the church being composed of the spiritual members of Christ's mystical body, and charged with the teaching of his doctrine, and the exem- plification of his spiritual life, for the instrumental instruc- tion and renovation of the woild. The hereditary Hebrew priesthood, therefore, rightly understood, in its connexions and causes, so far from af- fording any warranty or precedent for the man-made and man-governed hierarchies that are said to have been de- rived from it, furnishes a strong argument against them. It was placed at the greatest possible remove from human control — iis priests receiving no appointment from man, and being amenable to no earthly tribunal, ecclesiastical or civil. Is it not marvellous that priesthoods and hierar 198 DEMOCRACY OF OHRTSTIANITT. chiesnotoriousljr of human origin, and driven to the necessi- ty of vindicating their clainms to validity by insisting that Christ established no ecclesiastical order, but left that mat- ter altogether at the discretion of his disciples, to be modi- fied at their pleasure, should nevertheless vindicate their claims to antiquity by adducing their fanciful resemblan- ces to the Jewish priesthood, confined as that was to a divine pattern and tolerating nowhere any human control or modification \ Certain forms of hierarchal polity are claimed to be af- ter the pattern of the Levitical, because three distinct grades of ecclesiastics, corresponding, it is said, to the high priests, the priests, and the Levitesof the Hebrews. To make good the supposed parallel in the particulars for which this polity is distinguished, it should be made to appear that in the Hebrew economy, the lower grades were commissioned by authority of the higher, and held their offices at the good pleasure of their superiors, who exercised also the power of deposing them from office. It should moreover be made to appear that the higher grade held the prerogative of advancing and promoting the lower — that they exercised the right of naming their successors, of deciding who should be Levites, who should be priests, and who should be high priests, or that in some way, these matters were to be decided in ecclesiastical con- clave, unbarring the fltood gates of ecclesiastical ambition, emulation, servility, patronage, sycophancy, venality and corruption. All which, upon the face of the inspired rec- ord, is the very opposite of the facts of the case. Similar remarks, with incidental variations, might be made in respect to kindred ecclesiastical arrangements, where the three orders of clergy are not preserved, but where Hebrew precedent, anterior to the times of the New Testament, is cited, and where, notwithstanding, the phenomenon is witnessed, of a clergy self-originated, self-perpetuated, holding the keys of admission into the clerical body, and exercising the preroga- tive of deposition from the clerical office, which usages find no DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 199 parallel and receive no countenance from the ecclesiastical ar- rangements of the Hebrews. In the Hebrew economy the locality of the high priest and officiating priesthood was fixed at the sanctuary of the nation, at that "place which the Lord should choose." The Levites were severally located in their respective cities, and whenever a Levite wished to reside at the place of the sanctuary and take a part in the services there to be rendered, the law ex- pressly made provision for his doing so. The matter did not await the decision of the high priest, or the assent of the priest- hood, or of the Levites. The individual made the exchange of residence at his own option, and according to " the desire of his mind" assured of an equality of support with his brethren (Deut. xviii. 6-8,) in striking contrast with those modern ec- clesiastical arrangements which commit the location of the in- dividual minister to the decision of his superiors in clerical rank, or to some ecclesiastical body, sometimes forbidding him to labor where his services are needed and would be gratefully appreciated and sustained by the people, were the parties only at liberty to act for themselves, sometimes holding the rod of starvation over a minister and his family, to humble him into unworthy comphances, and in other rehgious communities com- pelling an artificial and needless vagrancy in the mass of the dependent clergy that they may be the more effectually con- trolled and wielded by the dominant few. In the Hebrew polity, the priesthood had nothing to do in the matter of ecclesiastical leo-islation, creed makino-, or au- thoritative decisions of theological controversies among the peo- ple or the clergy, by decretals, prohibitions, or canons. Such at least, from the significant silence of Moses, as we read him, w^e conclude must have been the original fact in the ecclesiasti- cal constitution of the Hebrews, whatever unauthorized usages may have appeared afterwards. The ecclesiastical as well as the civil code was delivered to the Hebrews to be obeyed, not to be remodelled, and there was the same absence of legisla- tive power and of a legislative body or functionary, in the one case as in the other. 200 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. s . To the priests it appertained, officially and statedly, to teacli the people the law, and instruct them in the doctrines of rehgion and duties of moralit}^, but not to the exclusion orthe silencing of other teachers not belonging to the clerical body, or to the house of Aaron or the hneage of Levi. No fact in the history of the Hebrews is more evident or outstanding than this, even after the subversion of the commonwealth and quite down to the times of our Savior. In another connexion we have alluded to this feature of the Mosaic dispensation, have adverted to the mission of the proph- ets, of different tribes, and have named a number of distin- guished preachers besides those usually denominated proph- ets, yet in no way connected with the Levites or the priest- hood. We introduce this feature again, in illustration and proof of the statement just now made, that ecclesiastical legis- lation and authoritative theological decision and the silencing of supposed heresy or error on biblical questions, did not per- tain to the Hebrew priesthood. Wherever these functions are claimed and exercised by the clergy norehgious teachin^^ must be tolerated but that of the regularly authorized clergy, and all lay preaching must be silenced of course. This v/as never systenaatically attempted, that we know of, among the He- brews. Moses declared exphcitly his desire that all the Lord's people would prophecy, and he sharply rebuked those who en- vied Eldad and Medad, for his sake, requesting that he would forbid them. (Numb. xi. 26, 29.) In the synagogue worship, a general freedom of remark and of inquiry is known to have been indulo-ed. This accounts for the fact that Jesus of Naza- reth, the carpenter's son, and not of the tribe of Levi, rejected as his claims were, hated and persecuted as he was, found ready access, on the Sabbath, to the ears of the people in the synagogues, wherever he went. In addressing the people in the synagogue on the Sabbath, he only exercised the common privileges of his countrymen, to which every body had been accustomed, from time immemorial, so that the simple fact of a carpenter's preaching, aside from the power and authority of his discourses, his doctrine, his reproofs, and the attendant DEMOCRACY OF CIIRISTIANITV. 201 miracles, appears to have created no opposition or excitement. Among all the charges of disorder and disorganization brought against him, t]\e offence of lay preaching was never put into the indictment. Even during that dog-star reign of hierarchal domination and persecution, the chief priests who " feared the people" knew better than to assail directly their cherished free- dom of speech in the synagogues. In the same manner the seventy disciples sent out by the Savior, before his crucifixion, the twelve apostles, fishermen of Galilee, and other disciples, afterwards, gained the ears of the people. No Jew thought of calling in question the right of a Jew to teach religion. Not only in the land of Palestine, but in the Grecian cities, and throughout the Roman empire, wherever the dispersed ,Tews had their synagogues, and the Jews' religion was tolerated, there was ordinarily an opportunity for the Christianized Jews to preach. To this fact, the early introduction of the gospel, throughout the then civilized world, is to be traced. The He- brew right of free speech in religious assemblies, dating back to the era of Moses, was among God's previous preparatives for the spread of the gospel. When Paul and his company came to Antioch, in Pisidia, where their reputation as heretics and disorganizers must have preceded them, and their pres- ence, doubtless was dreaded, " after the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhorta- tion to the people, say on." (Acts xiii. 15.) The common or- der of the synagogue must needs be preserved, and the com- mon civiHties of Hebrew worshippers extended to the visitants, as Hebrew brethren. And not in the synagogue alone was this freedom of speech cherished. In the temple at Jerusalem, and " in the last day, that great day of the feast," while the chief priests, in the midst of their solemnities, were thirsting for his blood, Jesus, the Nazarine, serenely hfted up his majestic voice among the wor- shippers, unharmed. He was a Hebrew, in a religious assem- bly of HebreAvs, and it would produce " an uproar among the people"— of course it would— if Hebrew rights and privileges, 202 DExMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. and'even in the midst of their annual festival, should be in- fringed by undertaking to silence him. In some other manner than by arresting the Nazarene as a disturber of their worship, at some other time than when he was addressing the people in the temple, must they contrive to " lay hands on him." Even at twelve years old, in that same temple, had he astonished the Sanhedrim with his wisdom, his understanding, and his answers. Well might they be astonished at these ; for the mere fact that a Hebrew youth should come into the annual theological convention of the nation, and sit among the Doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions, does not appear to have been the thing they marvelled at. He was an He- brew youth, and why should he not be a theological inquirer on so befitting an occasion ? If such were the ecclesiastical usages of that period, what must they have been in the times of the old Hebrew common- wealth, ere yet the liberties of the people had been in a meas- ure subverted, by departures from the code of Moses ? Or who beheves that the priesthood, as he left it, possessed the prerog- ative of stifling theological inquiry, of legislating religious in- vestigation into silence, of substituting authoritative decretals, bulls, decisions, and prohibitions of free speech, for patient in- struction, and affectionate appeal? And if a priesthood or clerical body instituted by God himself, and installed by mi- raculous manifestations' was thus modest, attempting no mo- nopoly of religious teaching, no suppression of free speech, no proscription of theological investigation, no exercise of legisla- tive functions over the Church, what shall be thought of pre- lates and ecclesiastical bodies who attempt all this without ex- hibiting any credentials of their jvre divino, sometimes with- out pretending to have any, and disclaiming it, and acting on no higher authority than is derived from their predecessors who either assumed it, or received it from a man like them- selves, some teacher of religion, or self-organized body of reli- gious teachers — some monarch or legislative assembly to whom God never committed the task of furnishing an ecclesiastical polity for his Church % Above all, what shall be said when DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIAxNirV. 203 all this is kept in countenance by appealing to the precedent of the Levitical priesthood, long since abolished, yet furnishing no example of such usages while it did exist, and constituted by a code altogether inconsistent with the introduction of them? CHAPTER XIV. RELATION OF THE PRIESTHOOD TO THE COMMONWEALTH. Having thus examined both the civil and the ecclesiastical polity of the Hebrews, we come now to consider their mutual relation to each other, particularly the bearing of the latter up- on the former. If the Hebrew commonwealth standing by itself, appears singularly democratic, how much of that feature does it lose by its connexion with the priesthood ? If the priest- hood in the hght in which it has now been presented, appears dem- ocratic in the comparison with modern hierarchal arrangements, how much does its connexion with the commonwealth detract from its otherwise democratic tendencies, or communicate to it an aristocratic bearing? What foundation is there for citing the polity of Moses, as an exemplification of the principle of Religious Establishments, as that term is now used, a prece- dent and a warranty for what is denominated a union of Church and State 1 It is admitted that in some respects, there was a relation be- tween the Church and the State, with the Hebrews, that does not exist in such of our modern communities as have no Reli- gious Establishments, no union of Church and State; and where, moreover, (as in most or all instances of such commu- nities) the Church and its membership comprise a body more select than the state or the nation, with its subjects or its citi- zens. l4is difference between such modern communities, (the 204: DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. present Nortli American States, for example,) and the Hebrew commonwealth, . arises from the Hebrew peculiarity, already noticed, namely, the constitution of both the church and the state, upon the common basis of the family relation, and by the process of lineal descent. This feature of the Hebrew church, and of the Hebrew state, we have called pecuhar, there having been, so far as we are acquainted, no other instance of the kind, ancient or mod- ern ; none at least, in which both facts were combined. And we say that this feature, which runs the boundaries of the state, in respect to its constituency audits subjects, in the same track with the boundaries of the church in its membership, is a feature appropriate only to the condition which gave rise to it and made it inevitable, viz. : the founding of the church and the founding of the state, upon the basis of family affinity and lineal descent. When vre have a modern state and a modern church constituted on that basis, both embracing the same community, it will be in time to cite the precedent of the He- brews, in favor of church and state unions. Until then the precedent cannot be followed in reality. But there is no such modern state, nor likely to be. Nei- ther is tliere any such modern church. There is no modern community constituted, or in a condition to be constituted, in this respect, like the Hebrew. And to take a modern commu- nity and attempt, by an artificial process, to make it resemble the Hebrew, (which had the rite of circumcision as the badge of its family unity) in the relation the church bears to the state, is to attempt what is impossible, and the failure, which is inevitable, can be concealed only by palming off a mere in- cident or appearance for the thing itself. There never has been and pretty certainly there never will be another church and another state sustaining towards each other the same re- lation as the Hebrew church and state sustained to each other. If such a fact could be re-produced, the church would not be a Chrisfian church, for no such church "can be founded on the basis of family affinity and lineal descent, it being a funda- mental principle of the Christian or New Testament polity, DEMOCRACV OF CHRISTIANITY. 205 that ill the Christian church there is neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian nor Scythian, but all are one in Christ, the middle wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles (upon which par- tition both the Hebrew church and state were founded) beino- broken down, never to be rcbuilded. That stage in the pro- gressive elevation of humanity has been gone over, and can never be travelled again. This is only saying that the He« brew act of the drama of humanity is not to be reproduced. As well might we dream of going back into the patriarchal period, the antedehuian or the Adamic. The attempt to follow, in this particular, the Hebrew polity, has never succeeded, because God never intended it should, which is evident from His never having directed the New Tes- tament church to do such a thing, nor furnished it with the facts in His Providence that could make it practicable: but on the contrary, has laid down a rule of membership which con- flicts with that of the Hebrew, and in His Providence has placed the ancient usage out of the reach of the moderns. To the New Testament church God has parcelled off no one portion of the earth's territory, as He did to the Hebrew, on which to erect a civil and an ecclesiastical commonwealth, with directions so to divide the soil among the membership that all others shall be excluded. Its spiritual membership and their mission to "go into all the world, and preach the gospel to ev- ery [creature," are inconsistent with such an arrangement. The New England emigrants or rather their successors, seem to have cherished such an idea, but it could not be realized, for the reasons that have already been stated. The attempt led them into acts of persecution, and added disgrace to defeat. But if modern religious establishments and church and state unions have never truly followed and never can follow the He- brew precedent, they have estabhshed usages and precedents of their own, which no well instructed Hebrew could have an- ticipated as claiming affinity with the Mosaic, and could never consent to recognize as being in harmony with it. Though the Hebrew church did sustain the peculiar rela- tion to the commonwealth, already described, that relation did 10 306 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. not resemble, in scarcely any of its leading features or conse- quences, the modern arrangements professedly derived from it. What we call a religious establisliment or a church and state union, in modern church history, or from the era of Con- stantine downwards, pre-supposes the existence of two things, as essential to its existence, neither of which appears to have bad any place in the polity and condition of the Hebrews as contemplated and established by Moses. In all such religious establishments or church and state unions there is, and must be, in the first place, an all-control- ling overshadowing and centralized civil power over the state or nation, called the government, the civil authority, distinct jfrom the people, or at least a legislative body or functionary, clothed with the law making power, and some well armed ex- ecutive functionary, the same or another, to give the legisla- tire action effect. If, in some instances, as in the colonies of New England, this description does not-fully apply, there fol- lows a corresponding weakness in the religious establishment, and the union between the church and the state proves imper- fect and transient. A " strong government" distinct from the people, and efficiently controlling them, is always held to be of fundamental importance, by the conservators of religious es- tabhshments, or unions of church and state. Without this, the entire system is a manifest failure, and soon vanishes, even in name. In the second place, there must be in all such religious es- tablishments an equally authoritative ecclesiastical power, re- siding in some spiritual functionary or ecclesiastical body, ex- ercising, in religious concernments, a control over the brother hood, the masses, analagous to that which the civil govern- ment just now described exercises in secular affairs, involvino- in reality, (though sometimes verbally disclaimed) the law- making or legislative power, and manifesting itself in the en- actment of creeds, the establishment of rituals and formulas, the promulgation of decretals, canons, rules, digests, or disci- plines; all these backed up with corresponding judicial action, trials, decisions, sentences, excommunications — a jurisdiction DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 207 provincial or national, if not universal, and lacking nothing but physical force to make itself obeyed as implicitly as the most absolute government on the earth. Such is the full descrip- tion of this element, though it manifests itself in different de- grees, modifications, or aspects, corresponding perhaps with the varied stages of its growth, progress, or decline. This spirit- ual authority sometimes becomes formidable, and even abso- lute and all-controlling, even in the absence of physical force, in virtue of its hold upon the superstitious hopes and fears of the people, its supposed possession of the keys of paradise, its power to destroy both soul and body in hell, its pretended pre- rogative of dispensing or of withholding pardon, its monopoly of the use and application of the ritual seals (as in the form of baptisms and eucharists) by means of which the channels of divine favor are supposed to be opened or closed at pleasure. When all these elements of ecclesiastical and spiritual domin- ion arc combined, and the training and temper of the people assimulated with them, there needs no physical force to make it as absolute as the most autocratic could desire. It needs no union with the secular arm, then. If sufficiently extended in in its influence and jurisdiction, it may bid defiance to empe- rors, it may dispense crowns at its leisure, it may absolve sub- jects from their oaths of allegiance, it may depose kings and set up whom it pleases in their stead. It may preach up cru- sades, raise armies, or disband them at its bidding. If such phenomena have chiefly been witnessed when the two ele- ments of power, the civil and the ecclesiastical, have been in a measure combined, it has only been because the ecclesiastical and spiritual element has failed to penetrate and control the entire masses, including the restless, the warlike, the aspiring, without holding out to them the baits of earthly pre-eminence which they prefer to future rewards. A union of church and state is the combination of the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities that have been described. A religious establishment is the ecclesiastical power, backed up and supported by the civil, both reposing upon the military arm. This union may assume varied forms. Sometimes, as 208 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. in Italy, the ecclesiastical pontiff himself may assume the reins of civil power, over the territory more immediately under his eye, and within his reach. Thus fortified, and surrounded by nations that recognize his ecclesiastical authority, whose civil governments enforce his spiritual claims, and sustain his hordes of subservient clergy, he may extend his political power over all Europe, may hold emperors as his vassals, and hterally com- pel them, on public occasions to hold his stirrups, or kiss his feet. Again, these monarchs may throw off that yoke. A Henry VlII. of Eno-land, taking advantage of changes in public opin- ion, may not only assert his political independence, but may proclaim himself head of the church, and repudiate the spirit- ual authority of the pope, in order to become pope over Eng- land himself. In both these cases, we see the highest civil and ecclesias- tical functions combined in the same personage. In other cases the civil and eccclesiastical functionaries or bodies may be kept quite distinct, the civil enforcing the ecclesiastical and receiv- ing only its spiritual influence and aid -in return. In England, to this day, the reigning monarch is styled head of the church, and the principal ecclesiastical preferments are made by the Crown, while the bishops sit, as civil legislators, in the House of Lords. Not very unfrequently the ecclesiastical functiona- ries become restive under secular control and make a bluster of asserting their spiritual prerogatives, but the necessity of state pay commonly brings them to terms. At other times the state feels the inconvenience of the connnexion, and to paci- fy rival ecclesiastics, patronizes two or three different religions at the same time, at least in different parts of the empire, as the British government is now doing. In some nations, non- conformity with the established religion is tolerated, as in Eng- land, but this is under certain disabilities and exactions, and comtnonly in consequence of a struggle : in other states there is no tolerance allowed. In all these variations the same principle is exemplified — the control and the enforcement of religion by a human civil gov- DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 209 ernment, at its own discretion, and without any express com- mand or authority from God — the subjection of the ecclesias- tical element of a community to the civil authorities, or vice versa the assumption of civil power by the ecclesiastics, as such, or yet again, a compromise and mutual agreement between the two, in which an autocracy or aristocracy in the state strengthens itself by an alliance with a kindred element in the church, conscious of its need of secular and compulsory aid — two despotisms, a civil and an ecclesiastical, mutually propping each other, or fusing themselves into one, the better to main- tain themselves, in opposition to the rights of the people. Now the reader of the preceding pages will perceive, at once, the utter impossibility of such a religious establishment, such a church and state union, as has been described, in connexion ■with the institutions of Moses, and that for the best of reasons. The elements for such an arrangement did not exist, and could not without the previous subversion of the institutions of Moses w^hich superseded and displaced them. There were no such ecclesiastical authorities to be " established," and there was no such civil government or secular authority to establish them! No such union of church and state could have been consuma- ted, because there w^as no such church and no such state to be united! There was indeed a church and there was a com- monwealth ; but neither the one nor the other answered at all to the description that has been given, and which (as w^ill have been seen) is essential to a religious establishment, a chuich and state union, in the current sense of those terms. That is to say — there was no overshadowing civil governorment, in dis- tinction from the people, at any central point — no legislature, no king, ho president, no governor, no national chief executive, no national treasury in their keeping, no standing army at their beck- — nothing in fact but the simple judiciary that has been described, a judiciary composed of the people themselves, or of the local judges elected by them, with the addition of a priest with the judge in the court of final resort. Suppose then there /md been such an ecclesiastical author- ity as has been described, legislating* in all religious affairs, 210 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. and seeking to strengthen itself against popular insubordination and opposition by appealing to the strong arm of secular power — to what or to whom should the application be made ? With whom or with what could "the church" (that is, the ecclesias- cal dignitaries) be allied ? From what quarter should " the es- tablishment " be sought ? Imagine the entire civil government of Great Britain to consist of judges chosen by bands of tens, fifties, hundreds, and thousands, to settle controversies and punish crimes, the people in parishes reserving to themselves, convened en masse, the right to adjudicate all capital offences, with only one additional court, located at London, with an elect- ed judge and a priest (a bishop if you please) to act, when reques- ted, as court of reference in difficult cases — do away king and ministers, lords and commons, army and navy, court of king's bench and all other courts except those just described — then imagine the bishops and clergy of the Church of England de- siring " an establishment," a "union of church and state," and we have an outline of the picture ! The application would be, in effect, to the commoners of London, to the operatives of Bir- mingham and Manchester, the coal-diggers of NeAv- Castle, the hard handed cultivators of the soil, (whoever might claim to own it,) to the majority of the people of Great Britain, irrespec- tive of condition or avocation. What would the arch-bishop of Canterbury think of such an establishment^ of such an union? But then, in the ecclesiastical arrangements of the Hebrews there happens to have been (as has already been shown) noth- ing at all resembling the Episcopal hierarchy of the Church of England, or of the Church of Rome, with their ecclesiastical, theological, and ritual legislation, powers of ordination, prefer- ment, self-perpetuation, monopoly of preaching, power of the rituals, power of the keys. What the Hebrew priesthood did for the people or on behalf of them, was done, not at their own discretion — withholding or giving as they pleased. Their work was appointed them by God himself, not by their own self-made canons, and it was a work to be done, and to be done impar- tially for all. It conferred on them no power over the people, to pardon or to withhold pardon, to send them to purgatory or DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 211 to paradise, to regenerate tliem or to leave tliem unregenera- ted, to confirm or not to confirm them, to bury them or to leave them unburied, and all at their own option ! The Hebrew priesthood had nothing that an autocratic civil government could conveniently wield for its ends. The people had a priesthood provided for them by God himself, not to be appointed by their civil rulers, nor controlled, nor fed, nor starv- ed, nor taken away by them. God had made all the appoint- ments, all the ecclesiastical promotions, himself; there was nothing for civil government to do in that direction: there was no convenient handle by which " the government,'' if there had been any, distinct from the people, could have seized hold of the priesthoods and wielded them as our modern civil gov- ernments do their state paid clergy. And then again, the sup- port of the priesthood was to come, not from any national treas- ury in the hands of a central government charged with the duty of providing religious functionaries, and sustaining and paying them. To the people, not to any civil government, the responsibility of supporting by a specified annuity their heaven- appointed priests was committed. They had only to honor these responsibilities and they had a priesthood devoted to their service, and looking to them for support, and had no occasion to depend on smy government to provide a priesthood for them, or to support one. Neither the priests nor the people were to be reduced to any such dependent and servile condition. Nei- ther the government, (if there were one) nor the priests, nor the people were under the temptation ordinarily presented, in modern times, to desire what is called a Religious Establishment — a Union of Church and State. And hence the Hebrew history, during the commonwealth, presents not the least semblance of any such fact, and not an incident, so far as the writer has discovered, has any apparent bearing in that direction. Even under the kings, after the ^Mosaic commonwealth had been subverted, the approximation towards the modern church-and-state usages seems to have been but dis- tant and occasional. Church distraints, (as before observed) church support, church preferments, secular legislation over the 212 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY church, prelitical participation in secular legislation, state endow- ments ofecclesiastical seminaries, ecclesiastical complaints of royal encroachments, kingly jealously of political pontiffs and priest- hoods — these, most certainly, and the like of them, do not fill the space in the Hebrew history that they do in the European, and f®r this distinction there must have been a cause. When some of the kings suppressed idolatry and restored the worship of Jehovah — incidents most greedily seized upon as precedents — they were not understood as legislating in matters of religion, but only as executing the laws of God himself, explicitly ordain- ed for that people, and appropriate to a nation that was at once a family, a state, and a church. For the monarchical feature of the proceeding, the institutions of Moses, however, are not re- sponsible. A family, an equal brotherhood, putting away idol- atry, and an autocratic executive doing it for them, may not present precisely the same aspect, though force in both cases may be employed. The grand distinction, however, between the supposed precedent and the modern application of it, lies in the divine command in the one case which is wanting in the other. We repeat what we observed before, the democratic principle is not violated by any execution of the divine com- mands; but it is violated when, Avithout any divine commission, men undertake to exercise the legislative authority of God. The modern legislation over religion lacks one grand element of va- lidity — the well- attested "Thus saith the Lord." On looking over the Old Testament in search of a state-ap- pointed and state-paid clergy, we have no precedent that any worshipper of Jehovah could desire to claim. There was Ba- laam, the son of Beor, appointed and employed by Balak, king of Moab. Though Balaam loved the wages of unrighteousness, he found the church and state union making too heavy demands upon him. There were depths of servility to which he could not descend, and the union was dissolved. (See Numb. xxii. and onward.) King Ah ab, likewise, maintained a "religious tstablishment," but his priests were those of Baal, not of Je- hovah. To sum up all in a few words: the more closely we study the DEMOCRACY OF CIIRTSTIANTY. 213 Mosaic institutes and the more fully v^e imbibe the spirit of them, the less shall we favor modern " religious establishments" — ".church and state unions." God never provided for the Hebrews a civil government that could thus be united to an ecclesiastical establishment; and He never provided for them an ecclesiastical polity that could be thus be united to the state. The thing never was ; for it could not be. The nations of our modern Christendom are under civil gov- ernments altogether too autocratic to claim any close affinity to the Mosaic commonwealth. Even of our modern repubhcs, as we call them, this is true. Our ecclesiastical arrangements, for the most part, and with few exceptions, are less democratic on the whole, than the Hebrew, notwithstanding its heredita- ry priesthood, which Christianity has abolished. And as though this were not sufficient, our civil and our ec- clesiastical arrangements, in the nations that are under the most aristocratic form of them, must needs be combined, that thus the autocratic principle may be strengthened ! To crown the climax, the institutions of Moses are cited in defence of all this, and especiall}^ as furnishing a precedent for what are call- ed religious establishments — church and state unions! The reader, it is hoped, Avill be impressed with the injustice of thus casting the blame of our anti-democratic institutions and usa- ges upon Moses. And he will do well to consider whether it be credible that the new dispensation was intended to be less free and democratic than the former one. ' CHAPTER XV. OF THE MILITARY PO^VER Ax^IONG THE HEBREWS — ITS RELATION TO THE CIVIL GOVERNMENT AND TO THE PEOPLE. Incidentally, we have had occasion to glance at the main facts in relation to military power among the He- 10* 214 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. brews. Jt is heedful, however, to recur again to those facts, to collect and arrange them, that we may see the position they held in the polity of the Hebrews, during the ccmmonwealth. Standing armies are proverbially the graves of repub- lics, and almost all monarchies have had their rise in the consolidation of the military power. Without a mili- tary establishment distinct from the people and inde- pendent of them, no autocratic arrangements could be long maintained. Indeed the common impression ex- cept in democratic communities is, that without some such military establishment neither law nor order can be maintained. And yet it is easy to see that a gov- ernment distinct from the people, and armed with a military power independent of them, sufficiently strong to control them, is as absolute and as formidable a despotism as can be conceived, it is worse than idle, it is mockery, it is insult, for those who advocate kingly power — who deny the political supremacy, under God, of the masses of the people, and who likewise maintain that a civil government, distinct from the people, must wield military power-— to say, nevertheless, as they sometimes do, that the oppressed millions who are ground to powder under the iron heel of such arrangements, when unjustly administered, as they are likely to be, are bound to rise up in rebellion against their oppressors, and throw off the yoke. To say nothing of the self-contradiction and ab- surdity of affirming that the people whose position as they teach should be simply that of subjects and not sovereigns, have nevertheless the sovereign right to revolutionize the government — that those masses who are not competent to select their rulers at the ballot box are qualified, never- theless, to displace them by the catridge box— the addi- tional and practical question presents itself, how and by what means are the people to throw oft^ the mis-govern- menta that crush them, when in the very frame-work and organization ot the arrangements under which they are DKxMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 315 placed, the government is distinct from the people and armed with a physical force sufficient to compel their un- qualified and abject submission. Yet there are philosophers, theologians, philanthropists, and statesmen— there are men claiming all these charac- ters in an emment degree— who are guilty of this very con- tradiction. They deride the idea that thepeopLe are heaven- commissioned to discharge the responsibilities of civil government— that the masses of men are competent to the task of selecting their rulers at the ballot-box they advocate a government distinct from the people and armed with a controlling physical power over them, and yet, at the same time, they nourish their contempt for popular supremacy by pointing to the crushed millions who are groaning under these very arrangements, assert- ing it to be their bounden duty to throw off the mis-gev- ernments they groan under, and inferring from their ina- bility to do so that they have not risen above the charac- ter of slaves, and deserve on the whole little better than their fate ! Without absolving from blame the nations thus degra- ded and abused, the question is a pertinent onQ— when, how and by what acts have they proved themselves unworthy of freedom, or of a good government, or incompetent to the task of self-government by the arrangements of a commonwealth % When, how, and by what acts, if not when they consented in the first place to come under a government distinct from the people, and armed with the physical power of controlling them 1 Especially, when, like the Hebrews, perhaps, they grew weary of the duties of a commonwealth, and desired a military king to rule over them % These thoughts may give interest to the inquiry— what was the position of the military power in the Hebrew commonwealth \ In vain, so far as the promotion of hu- man freedom was concerned, were those stupendous mir- acles in Egypt, and at the Red Sea, for the rebuke apd 216 DEMOCRACY OF CHRTSTTAXTTY. overthrow of autocratic power with its idolatrous ac- companiaments and emblems— in vain were the arrange- ments made in the wilderness for the democratic election of their rulers by the people — in vain were the directions given for the f direct exercise of judicial power by the congregations of the people themselves, for the admmis- tration of penal law— in vain were the expensive lessons by which the Hebrew mind was educated into the idea of universal common law, m opposition to that of the validity and authority of capricious and arbitrary enactments and decrees— in vain was the equal division among the people of the soil of the promised land— in vain was the jubilee that prevented the perpetual alienation of estates— in vain were all these united, or any other conceivable safeguards against despotic usages and autocratic demands, if after all, the people were to be put under the control of a mili- tary power distinct from themselves and wielded, not by . by the people, but by a government in which the people did ■ not effectually participate. Was there any such discrep- ancy in the institutions of Moses— any such self-subver- sive arrangementsl We inquire now after the recorded facts. The prohibition of either cavalry or war-chariots, even in the event of the subversion of the commonwealth by an elective and limited monarchy, is a very significant fact, us showing that the Hebrews were not encouraged in be- coming a military people, pushing their conquests in every directfon, (after Uiey had once obtained their promised inheritance) nor even acting on the prudential maxim of our modern Christendom, "In time of peace prepare for war." In the absence of the modern discovery of gun- powder it almost amounted, of itself, to a prohibition of all such warlike preparations and anticipations. Without war-horses or chariots the love of military adventure could not be very extensively gratified, nor the ad- miration of military heroes fostered, nor the ambition of military commanders encouraged. Nor could the gen- eralissimo oi the national forces (had there been any) DEMOCPwVCV OF GHRTSTIANTTY. 217 whether recognized as chief magistrate, king, or other- wise, be enabled to wield any very effective instrumental- ity for subjugating the mass of the people. Imagine a divine prohibition of gun-powder to one of our modern civil governments or its chief magistrate, consider v/ell the ef- fects and the implications of such a prohibition, and you have the spirit and bearing of this remarkable arrangement. "He shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to the end that he should mul- tiply horses." — Deut. xvii. 16. " Multiplying horses for chariots of Vv'ar and cavalry, or for luxury, would increase the splendor of the mon- arch, and form a ground of confidence distinct from, and inconsistent with, a proper confidence in God, and with considering Him the glory of Israel." * * " According- ly we find that till the days of Solomon horses were little used by the Israelites, and they had not much intercourse with Egypt ; but afterwards the horses of that kingdom^ proved a continual source of sin and temptation to them." — Scotfs Commentary y * Wars of foreign conquest were virtually forbidden in the divine prohibition to disturb the children of Esau and the children of Lot, CDeut. ii. 4-9.) No Hebrew was to be compelled to serve ia the army, or to go forth to battle without his own free consent. (Deut. XX. 8.) In all the arrangements of Moses, we meet with nothing indicating the existence of a military power or a military body distinct from the people. No provision is made for a standing army, or a navy— no officials were appointed for the superintendency of them j none, in fact, to whom such a charge could have been appropriately committed. There was no legislative nor centralized national govern- ment to declare war— no chief magistrate, governor, pres- ident, king, or emperor to be commander-in-chief of the army. And the account given of the subversion of the commonwealth by the rebellious elders and people of Is- rael (I. Sam. viii.) shows plainly that the core of their rebellion consisted in a desire to remedy what they ima- 218 DEMOCRACY OF OHRTSTIANITY. gined to be the defect of the divine plan, in this very par- ticular. " Nay ! but we will have a king over us," [said they,] "that we may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our bat- tles."— v. 19-20. This proves that up to this period there was no such thing as a military power over the people, and distinct from them. There was no military power in the hands of " the governmenf^ as distinguished from the people, be- cause there was no such civil government, and no govern- ment so organized as to be in a position to wield it. The people constituted the state — the people were, es- sentially, the government, and aside from the people, act- ing spontaneously, as occasions presentsd themselves, there was no military power. The relation of the military to the civil power — the re- lation of the military power to the people — are both read- ily understood, when we perceive that the civil govern- ment was the people acting for judicial purposes, and that the military power was the people acting for the common defence, or, in some instances, for the execution of penal law. The entire history already reviewed, corroborates this statement of the matter. Joshua was divinely commis- sioned to conquer Canaan and to divide it among the chil- dren of Israel. In doing this, there was no military dis- tinct from the people. That purpose accomplished, no military establishment remdned. And the language em- ployed in the second chapter of the Judges implies that if the people had been true to the obligations resting upon them, the Providence of God would have been their suffi- cient protection, and no occasion for their military judges would have existed. These commanders, as already shown, exercised functions altogether extraordinary, oc- casional, and temporary, a function not originally provi- ded for, in the institutions of Moses, never engrafted iato DEMUCKAOV OF GIIRISTIANITY. 219 them, nor permanently retained. So far from belonging to the arrangements of civil government, they were among the sad evidences that the people were verging towards a condition in which the benefits of a righteous and free government could not be enjoyed. They no more belong- ed to the civil polity of the Hebrews, as Moses establish- ed it, than a w^en or a cancer belongs, physiologically, to the human system. This view shows us the striking contrast between the democratic commonwealth of Moses, and the modern na- tions called Christian, in the relative position severally assigned by them, to the military power. Let the Euro- pean nations and their transatlantic daughters adopt the Mosaic. polity in this particular, and wars, as well as au- tocratic domination, will be comparatively rare. Wheth- er under the perfected economy of the New Dispensation there should be retained any vestige of the military sys- tem, is a question upon which we cannot now enter. It is sufficiently evident that Jesus did not give more en- couragement to military arrangements than Moses! CHAPTER XVL HERO WORSHIP NATIONAL PRIDE. Our view of the institutions of Moses would be incom- plete, and our conception of the spirit they breathe would be inadequate, should we fail to notice distinctly the care that was taken by the inspired Lawgiver and his com- mentators, to discourage any appearance of hero worship and national pride. Incidentally we have hinted at this, as we could not help doing, in connexion with the admoni- tions given to the Hebrews to love and honor the stran- ger, and extend to him the benefits of the same equal and just laws which it was their own privilege to enjoy ; 220 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY and likewise in connexion with what was said of the ab- sence of any supreme national executive, wielding kingly- powers, or exercising discretionary law-making functions, over his brethren. Recalling to mind those features of the Mosaic institu- tions we have been pondering, let us consider for a mo- ment the remarkable tone of the Mosaic writings, and of the Scriptures everywhere, in respect to the spirit of na- tional exhortation, the pride of national aggrandize- ment, national glory, national achievements, national heroes. That these have been the besetting sins of all great and prosperous nations, and the bane, especially, of all free gov- ernments,noone can deny. The prophetic denunciations are emphatic on this point. The national pride of the Egyptians and their idolatry of their heroes and monarchs were con- nected, as we have already seen, with the image worship, the political iniquities, the severe judgments, and the ul- timate degradation and ruin of that nation. Against their pernicious example, it was especially important to guard the Hebrews, the chosen people, selected from among all the tribes of the earth for the highest mission ever com- mitted to any people, and distinguished by a series of more remarkable and brilliant deliverances .and exploits than could be recounted by any other nation under heaven. How evidently would they be exposed to the infection of national pride ! How almost inevitablj^ would they be tempted to idolize, after their deaths, the distinguished men by whose instrumentality they had been guided and delivered ! Refractory and rebellious as they were during the lives of their benefactors, they would be the more likely to seek amends by adulation after they had passed off the stage of action. The new generation that had en- tered the promised land under Joshua, with the genera- tions that came after them, how very naturally might they become imbued with the spirit of hero worship and of the national pride that it engenders ! This danger DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITV. 221 was guarded against by such admonitions, among others, as the following : " Speak not thou in thine heart after that the Lord thy God hath cast them [i. c. the Canaanites] out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land j but for the wickedness of those nations doth the Lord dri^e them out from before thee. J^ot for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thy heart dost thou go to possess their land, but for the wick- edness of those nations doth the Lord drive them out from before thee, and that He may perform the word which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Understand, therefore, that the Lord thy God giv^eth thee not this good land to possess it for thy unrighteousness, for thou art a stiff-necked people. — Deiit. ix. 4-G. The remainder of the chapter is occupied with illustra- tions of their wicked and rebellious conduct, during their sojourn in the wilderness, the speaker (Moses) declaring " Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that T knew you." (v. 24.) These are not the words of an ambitious aspirant, expecting to be lauded as a hero._ This is not the way in which nations are to be educated in the literature of boastful self-flattery, hero worship, and the divinity of kings ! In the twenty-sixth chapter of the same book are direc- tions for the solemn and public offering of the first fruits of the land of promise, after they should have entered into possession of it. The first fruits w^ere to be placed in baskets and carried to the place of the tabernacle, to be offered by the priest. '' And the priest shall take the basket out of thine hand, and set it down before the altar of the Lord thy God, and thou shalt speak and say before the Lord thy God — A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous ; and the Egyptians evil intreated us, and afflicted us, and laid on us hard bondage ; and when Ave cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice and beheld our affliction, and our labor, and our oppression. And the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty 222 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. hand and with an outstretched arm, and with great terri- bleness, and with signs, and with wonders. And He hath brought us into this place and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milkand honey. And now behold, I have brought the first fruits of the land, which, thoUj O Lord, hast given me." — v. 4-10. In all this formula for a national thanksgiving, a cele- bration of their national independence and freedom, not a word is said of the ^' bravery of our gallant troops," not a word of the sublime heroism and princely dignity of Moses, not a word of the resolute intrepidity of Caleb, not a word of the consummate generalship and manly daring of Joshua, or of the garlands that decked the brow of the conqueror, the father of his country. Not a word in this direction, nor of the glory of our sainted ancestry, but — " A Syrian, ready to perish was my father !" And the glory of deliverance and victory is all ascribed to Jehovah. Nothing like hero worship, assuredly, can be discovered in all this, but the most emphatic and eloquent reproof of the spirit that could be occupied or gratified with it. The piety of this humble ascription escapes not the no- tice of our commentators, and it ought not. But who has thought to remark that this same edifying expression and exemplification of piety is not a less emphatic expression and signal exemplification of the spirit of brotherly equal- ity and democracy, that bows not down before earthly heroes, that makes not demi-gods of public benefactors, thus subverting the liberties of a people in the very act of celebrating the achievement of them, and building up the claim to a new autocracy upon the merit of having as- sisted in the subversion of an older and a decrepid one. God took care that no idolatrous and anti-democratic pageant should be enacted at the funeral of Moses, that no sculptured marble, after the manner of surrounding image worshippers should be erected at his tomb, that no meritorious pilgrimages should be made to the resting place of his ashes, no relics be manufactured out of his bones or of the inanimate objects that were near to him, DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 223 no apostrophes or incantations chanted over his dust, after his decease. Alone on the summit of Pisgah he breathed his last. The Lord buried him, and "no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day." — Deut. xxxiv. 6. Who can fail to perceive the congruity of this providen- tial arrangement with the divine admonitions communica- ted to the people by Moses, while living, such as those already recited, and such, moreover, as the following : " Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping His commandments, and His judgments, and His statutes which [ command thee this d^y. Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses and dwelt therein, and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and all that thou hast is multiplied, then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage ; who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions and drought, where there was no water, who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint, who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, "* which thy fathers knew not, that He might humble thee, and that He might prove thee, to do thee .good at thy latter end. And thou say in thine hearty my power ^ and the might of my hand hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God, for He it is that giveth thee power to get wealth, that He might establisli His covenant which He sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day." — Deut. viii. 20. What a contrast and what a reproof to the inflated and unfounded encomiums we often hear of the consummate sagacity and profound statesmanship of this, or that, or the other popular political economist, prince, king, president, minister, senate, or legislative body, under whose admin- istration or guidance a vast influx of wealth is said to have rolled in upon the nation, just as though their arti- ficial legislations and economical quackeries had produced a single blade of grass or kernel of grain ! And when the national prosperity has come, very manifestl}-, not in con- sequence of tlieir plans and doings, but in spite of them ! Temptations to such folly had been removed from the 224 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. Hebrews, in some good measure, during the continuance of their commonwealth, by securing the total absence of that class of political functionaries whose vocation may- be regarded as in rivalship with Divine Providence, and and to whom our modern communities look up more con- fidingly and imploringly for a due adjustment of banks and tariffs than they do to Him who controls the elements of nature, for the needed supplies of sunshine and rain! The Hebrews, however we may estimate their rank in the scale of intellectual advancement, were not to be befooled by such artsof jugglery as these. . They had witnessed the discomfiture of the magicians of Egypt, and were not at this period initiated into the philosophy of the star-gazers, the astrologers, and monthly prognosticators of Babylon j and yet they needed to be cautioned, beforehand, against the self-flattery that almost uniformly accompanies the in- crease of wealth, begetting at once the spirit of impiety and of aristocratic pride. And what was the lesson conveyed by the compassing of the city of Jericho seven days, and the prostration of its walls at the sound of the trumpets of ram's horns and the shouts of the people ? What was the moral of the re- duction of the army of Gideon from thirty two thousand to three. hundred, and of the deliverance achieved through these, at the signal of the breaking of the pitchers 1 The pride of national prowess — the glory of heroic achievement — the consequent idolatry of heroes, forget- fulness of God, and reverence of earthly kings — all these were to be cast into shade that the loftiness of man might be abased, and the Lord. alone exalted and worshipped. And let it not escape attention that the Scriptures not only forbid the adulation of such /a/se heroes as man- kind commonly idolize, but that they also and especially discountenance an undue veneration and idolatry of the most noble, the most heroic, the most magnanimous of those mere men whose good deeds and valuable services they record. They are never exalted into seraphs or demi- DEMOCRACY OF CilRigTIAINiTY. 225 gods. They are never panegyrized in the style of partial- ity and exaggeration. Their faults are never concealed. They are made to appear what they were, " men of like pas- sions with ourselves." Their virtues are recorded and so are their transgressions. And all this is evidently design- ed to prevent us from being misled into an improper rev- erence of them. The record takes care to inform us that Noah who out-rode the deluge of waters was once over- come with wine — that Job, the most patient of men, cursed the day of his birth — that Abraham, the lather of the faithful, was sometimes betrayed into distrust and prevar- ication — that Lot, the righteous refugee of Sodom, was not wholly untainted with its vices — that Jacob, who, as a prince, had power with God and prevailed, on one occa- sion deceived, and was disgraced and exiled — that "Aaron, the saint of the Lord " sinned in making a golden calf — that MosQs, the meekest of men, spake unadvisedly with his lips, and was excluded from the promised land — that David, the man after God's own heart, was guilty in the matter of Uriah — that Solomon, the wisest of men, stoop- ed to folly, and outlandish women caused him to sin — that the good Jehosaphat erred in joining affinity with the the wicked Ahab — that the circumspect Josiah lost his life by a rash and ill-advised adventure — that another He- brew king served the Lord, but not with a perfect heart — -ithat another reformed a number of abuses, but did not reform them all. Even Elijah who was carried up in a chariot of fire to heaven, without tasting of death — Elijah immediately after his triumphant victory over the proph- ets of Baal, and over Ahab and Jezebel — is presented to us in attitude of despondency, distrust, and almost despara- tion — desiring to die. The New Testament writers pursae the same plan, in recording the ambitious pride of the sons of Zebidee, the fall of Peter, the distrust of Tho- mas, the dissention between Paul and Barnabas, the dis- simulation of Peter. Whatever else may bo taught or not taught by this. re- 226 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY markable characteristic of the inspired writers, one thing is sufficiently apparent, the philosophy of hero worship, either in its antique or more modern phase, is not taught nor promoted by it 5 and while they furnish us with no excuse for our own follies and derelictions, but should incite us to guard against them with incessant vigilance, they warn us, at the same time, against bowing down to our fellow- men, and committing ourselves implicitly to the guidance of sinful worms of the dust like ourselves, instead of con- fiding in God — the error of all who yield their assent to to autocratic arrangements or aristocrotic claims. Such facts give emphasis to the divine admonitions against hero worship with which the Scriptures abound. " Cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted of V— /^a. ii. 22. " Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord." — Jer. xvii. 5. «< Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of Man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he re- turneth to his earth, in that very day his thoughts perish. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help and whose hope is in the Lord his God." — Ps. cxlvi. 2-5. Other philosophies may commend hero worship and saint worship as auxiliary to the worship of Jehovah, and as harmonizing with it, on the ground that the same at- tributes of God that demand adoration — such as strength, wisdom, and justice — are found, though in an inferior de- gree, in good and great men. The philosophy of the Bible, without overlooking the goodness and wisdom of good men, or teaching us to overlook them, so strongly con- trasts all finite goodness — especially all human goodness — with the Infinite Goodness, and Strength, and Wisdom, as to annihilate the former in the comparison. He char- geth His angels with folly ; the heavens are not clean in His sight. And when the idea of worship presents itself, the heavenly messenger replies promptly, "See thou do it not, for 1 am thy fellow-servant — worship God." " Thou DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 227 shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve." " There is none good but One, that is God." In rising to the worship of Jehovah we so distance the earth that its mountains sink into vallies, and all its in- habitants stand on a dead level. No idea adverse to dem- ocratic equality can have place, then. " Power belongeth imto God." On this basis rested the democracy of the Mosaic commonwealth — this was the key-note of its har- monies. The Hebrew government has been called a Theocracy. So it was ; and for that very reason it was necessarily a democracy in the human administration of it — and the Hebrews revolted from their theocracy when they desired a king — because the kingly majesty of Jehovah displaces all other kings, leaving all His subjects as seen from the foot of His throne — the only true point of observation — on that common level on which no mere man may wield the scep- tre over his fellows. One son of Adam, one only, might lawfully do this, because " in the beginning he was with God, and was God." Of him it is written, "Let all the angels of God worship Him." It may be proper to add, in illustration, that the He- brews, as a matter of fact, retained the spirit of their in- stitutions just in proportion as they were preserved from hero worship and national pride : and that their idolatry of Moses, of the rituals, of the temple, of the temple worship, together with their pride of national dignity, and of their affinity to Abraham, to Isaac and Jacob, kept equal pace with their increasing depravity, as they ripened for destruc- tion, building the tombs of the prophets and garnishing the sepulchres of the righteous, yet crucifying the Lord of glory. (See Jer, vii. : Isa. i. and Iviii : Matt, xxiii. : John viii. &c.) Should any portion of the Bible be cited as celebrating with glowing eloquence, the mighty deeds of its great men, that portion would undoubtedly be the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. But the scope of ^28 DEMOCRACY OF OHRISTIANITY. the rhetoric will be found to magnify the power, not of man but of God, and of true faith in Him; a faith to be regarded, not as the exclusive prerogative of the gifted few, but the equal privilege of the common brotherhood of the saints, for whom still better things were reserved, (v. 40.) CHAPTER XVIL GENERAL CHARACTER AND NATURAL TENDENCIES OF THE MO- SAIC LAWS AND INSTITUTIONS. If the reader has accompanied us in our examination of the institutions and laws of the Mosaic commonwealth, he may, perhaps, be prepared to express an opinion in respect to their general character and tendencies; and to say whether the description given of them by Moses towards the close of his career, presents a true picture of them. "Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments even as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye should do so, in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding, in the sight of the nations which shall hear all these statutes and say. Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people ; for what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon Him for 1 And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law which 1 set before you this day % Only take heed to thyself and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things that thine eyes hath seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life, but teach them thy sons and thy sons' sons." — Deut. iv. 5-9. Moses did not 67iact but only taught these statutes. This he did " as the Lord commanded " him, not as he DEJIOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 229 himself judged expedient. He made no boast of states- manship or of a knowledge of jurisprudence, in commen- ding these laws ; nor did he flatter the Hebrews, or en- courage them in national pride. They might expect the reputation of wisdom, in proportion as they obeyed and administered faithfully these statutes. Moses expected the surrounding nations would hear of these statutes and com- mend their wisdom. Such, undoubtedly, was the fact, and they have been a watch-light amid surrounding dark- ness, ever since. Directly or indirectly, all free institu- tions, from that day to this, have been derived from them. The time would fail to trace minutely the natural and evident tendencies of the institutions of Moses. At pres- ent we shall only glance at a few particular bearings and manifestations of them sufficiently significant, however, and comprehensive in their connexions, to justify the se- lection. The student of ancient history will comprehend us, when we advert to the general fact, in the ancient nations, of the degradation of the great masses of community, in- cluding, especially, the people of the rural districts, the cultivators of the soil, if such they may be called. The simplicity of the patriarchal ages was transent. General virtue and intelligence, for a number of centu- ries, must have been on the decline. From the era of Abraham to that of Joshua, a sad change had passed over the inhabitants of Canaan. The land was not given to the Hebrews for a possession until the iniquity of those nations was full. ^- In other nations, similar changes must have been going on. The knowledge of the true God, transmitted from Noah, was not lost in a day. Corresponding habits of comparative morality, of decorum, of good manners, of good taste, of good sense, must also have remained, and are manifest in the sacred narratives. If not polished, the patriarchs were not savage. But in rural life, favorable 11 230 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANlXr. as it is to virtue, in many respects, and with proper cul- ture, there is, in the absence of letters, and of settled in- stitutions, a constant and ahuost resistless tendency to sink down into brutishness and barbarism. We witness this in our sparse settlements, on the borders of civiliza- tion, in America, even with those who are not wholly un- acquainted with letters, and who were born and educated in civilized life. No small effort is requisite to prevent many civilized communities from going back again, to the savage state. Every thing, at the period now alluded to, in the absence of printing, if not of letters, tended in that direction, so far as rural or country life was concerned. Corrupt and corrupting as populous cities commonly are and doubly so in the darkness of unbroken heathen- ism, there was a long period, nevertheless, when the civ- ilization of the world, such as it was, took up its abode chiefly in cities, and the country was left to its fate. Ar- chitecture, commerce, manufactures, the arts attracted men into the cities. Here too, the knowledge of letters was more commonly introduced, learning was fostered, literature was patronized. Wealth, numbers, luxury, splendor, power, as well as intelligence distinguished the cities. Pride soon tauffht the inhabitants of great cities to regard all the rest of the world with disdain. The ancient kings were kino-s of cities. Cities extended their conquests far and near. The names of cities were names of nations. Nine- veh, Babylon, Tyre, Rome, were seats of political power. Then came wars between cities — the conquest of cities by cities — confederation of cities — empires of cities. This feature of ihe ancient civilization is noticed by Guizot, who remarks that "the history of the conquest of the world by Rome is the history of the conquest and foundation of a vast number of cities." (Hist. Civiliza- tion, p. 42.) Accordingly, he observes, the Roman gov- ernment was merely municipal — the government of a city; their institutions were municipal institutions — this was their distinctive character, (p. 41) Oemockacy of ciiinsTiANiTr. 231 The bearing of all this upon rural life, may be faintly Jmanrined. A paragraph from the writer just mentioned, may assist our conceptions, " At this time there were no country places, no villa- ges, at least the country was nothing like what it is in the present day. li was cultivated, no doubt, but it was not peopled. The proprietors of lands and of coantry es- tates dwelt in cities, they left these occasionally to visit their rural property, where they usually kept a certain number of slaves; but that which we now call the coun- try, that scattered population, sometimes in lone houses sometimes in hamletsand villages, and which everywhere dots ouf land with agricultural dwellings, was altoo-ether unknown in ancient Italy." (p. li.) ° There is some difficulty in comprehending fully even this graphic description. The cu/iivoJors^ it seems, were not regarded as people. Their condition was too low for that term. U not literally slaves, chattels personal, they were in a condition of vassalage. The shepherds of the patri- archal ages, in the east, appear to have occupied the coun- try almost in common. But now, at least in Italy, the soil was claimed by residents in cities. Like the Irish tenantry, the people inhabited the land of non-residents. The slave states of America present, in some respects a similar picture, only the planters are scattered over the country, not collected together in cities. Their slaves require a more vigilant attention, a more stringent con- trol, than the ancient peasantry. One feature of the picture is sufficiently prominent. A vast moral desolation, an intellectual and spiritual as well as political rum, presents itself, as afTecting as it is ap- palling. Agricultural pursuits in some form, or at least rural life, including the pastoral and the chase, seem des- tined, of necessity, to occupy the great bulk of mankind, and no arrangements that could congregate a dispropor- tion of the race in cities, could fail to diminish unfavora- bly the numbers of the producing classes. Some must be overtasked, others over-fed, and all would be injured. 232 BEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIAjriTY. The artificial would supplant the natural. Labor in gen- eral and especially agricultural labor, which ought to be signally honorable and ennobling, would become servile and degrading. Industry, the hand-maid of virtue and natural ally of intelligence, would degenerate into drudge- ry, and become the companion of ignorance and brutality. In the cities, effeminacy, luxury, idleness, pride, licen- tiousness, oppression, the sins of JSodom, would be likely to reign uncontrolled and unchecked. No moral waste, not even that of savage life, or of rural enslavement could be more inveterate than that of wealthy and populous cities, given up to the love of money, the love of power, the love of display, the love of sensual indulgences. The refinement and elegance of such cities, with all the science, the lite- rature and the fine arts that could adorn them, would not compensate for the absence of virtue, of true religion, of rational freedom. Within the walls of such cities there must be a vast amount of squallid poverty, pining want, dense ignorance and brutal vice, more hopeless, if possi- ble, and more disgusting, than the barbarism of the coun- try Even in our own times, we know enough of the ten- dencies of populous cities, boasting the light of the gos- pel, to perceive that this picture of the ancient heathen cities is not incredible. There is reason to think that the picture of Italy and of the rest of Europe in the times of the Roman empire, resembled that of the ancient nations in general, in the times of Moses. The population of Asia, as intimated by Guizot, may have retained the patriarchal character for a longerperiod than the more western nations. The tide of western emigration from the centre of patriarchal civiliza- tion may have exposed the emigrants sooner to the influ- ences tending to barbarism. The same causes, however, were at work, and steadily though gradually producing their appropriate effects. Egypt, as we have already seen, was completely under the withering power of a land monopoly in its worst form, the absolute monarch being i DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 233 the owner ot the soil, and the cultivators reduced to a state of vassalage. The building of Pithom and Kaannses as treasure cities, by the over-tasked and servile Hebrews, during their bondage, is an incident indicative of the same preponderance of great cities^ in the Egyptian state of so- ciety, that afterwards characterized Italy and all the Western Roman Empire, including Gaul and Spain. This condition of things, let it be noted, presented as inseparable an obstacle to the introduction ot democratic institutions, deserving the name, (and affording equal se- curity and protection for all classes of the people, inclu- ding the poorest, the most ignorant, the most servile,) as it did to the introduction of true religion, and of that real refinement, civilization, and generally diffused intelli- gence, virtue, independency, and comfort that naturally come in its train. Such being the condition of the ancient nations in gen- eral, and such being the tendencies to which the most fa- vored portions of the world, even the seats of the ancient patriarchal usages were exposed, the problem was, how to counteract these tendencies, how to grapple with all this dense mass of sensuality and moral putrefaction, how to cultivate, with any prospects of success, these vast, interminable, and inveterate moral wastes 1 How should the dignity of manual labor, the healthful influences of virtuous industrj , of honorable and intelligent husbandry be restored 1 How were city and country to be brought again into their natural and symmetrical proportions 1 How without this, could autocratic domination be checkedl How could the righteous dominion of Jehovah be restored! How could true religion and morality be taught, exem- plified, and propagated 1 How could the equality of a common brotherhood be exhibited or honored ? How could inalienable human rights be brought to view — how secured \ How could the spirit of free institutions be breathed into such nations 1 And how should they be qualified to understand and administer them ? 234 DEMOCRACY OF ClIRISTTANITY. Howl The sacred Scriptures, from the books of Ex- odus to the book of the Judges, inform us how it was done. More than mere human wisdom was employed in devising the plan — more than mere human power was re- quisite for the undertaking. It was not in Moses or in AaroHy it was not in Joshua or in Caleb. He who made man — who gave law to him — who had determined to re- store him from his degradation — He who called Abra- ham — He who covenanted with his Messiah that the hea- then should be his inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth his possession — He who saw the end from the beginning — He in whose hand are the hearts of kings — He who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will — He it was that devised and performed the greit work. Some portion of the earth — some central conspicuous spot, close bordering on the Asiatic, the African, the Eu- ropean branches of the human family must be selected for the new, the grand experiment. Some territory, too long- cumbered with vice and degradation must be emptied of its unworthy and miserable inhabitants, to whom a longer forbearance would be no real benefit but rather a curse in the end — some over-tasked and burthened victims of these autocratic oppressions, must be brought up out of their bondage, amid scenes which should cause neighboring and distant despots to tren:tble, and rouse the most besot- ted of their sycophants, the most degraded of their vassals to look on, and learn. Egypt must be spoiled, Pharaoh and his hosts overthrown, Israel redeemed, the Canaan- ites conquered, the chosen people planted in their stead. And for what] That a new lesson might be taught to them, and through them to the surrounding nations— to.all mankind ! And what was the process of teaching ? An equal di- vision of the soil among the people ; and secured to then-> from the grasp of creditors by jubilee laws. Equality of possession and the general pursuit of agriculture in this and in other ways encouraged. Overgrown cities, dis- DEMOCRACY OF CnRISTIANiry. •235 proportionate commerce, luxury and accumulated capital, thus and in other ways discouraged, (perhaps even by laws against usury or increase.) Next, by a democratic polity, a popular judiciary, the reign of common law, the absence of legislative prerogative and kingly power, the clothingof the people, at once, and e?i masse, (laborers and agriculturists as they mostly were) with all the po- liticaf responsibilities of the nation ; above all, and through all this, the restored knowledge of God and His law, supplanting all autocratic domination and power. Whoever contemplates, first, the condition and struc- ture of ancient heathen society, its overgrown and cor- rupt cities, its degraded rural districts, and who next turns a scrutinizing eye to the institutions of Moses, will see at a glance, the divine slfill with which the remedy was adapted to the disease— the panacea to the sore. Wherever the one could be successfully applied, the other would be removed, of course. No man acquainted with human nature, the workings of civil institutions, the connexion between moral and political cause and efiect, can fail to be struck with the powerful tendency of the Mosaic economy to break up that particular feature of ancient heathen society that has been described. The lesson to the Hebrews, through them to the surrounding nations, and ultimately to all the kindreds of the earth who shall be taught the religion perfected by the anointed successor of Moses, (the seed in whom all nations were to be blessed) was the lesson of the One Only Potentate over all men, the equal brother- hood and equal rights of all His subjects, their common par- ticipancy in the privileges and responsibilities of His king- dom, their equal right to the soil as tenants under the Great Father, the dignity and blessedness of productive manual labor, the odiousness of caste, the iniquity of all the usages of monopoly, misanthropy, inequality, and oppression. If any one doubts the tendency and efficacy of the religion and the polity of Moses to rescue the rural districts, the 236 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. country, the agricultural population — and through them the cities — from the degraded position described as per- taining to the history of ancient heathen nations, let him study the history of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, from the times of Moses to the present. Let him point out the times and the places where the opposite character- istics have preponderated or even appeared, and inquire after the moral and chronological causes that have opera- ted to produce them. In which of the ancient nations, except the Hebrew, and so far back as the times of the Judges, do we find a civil government administered by the masses of the people, the agriculturalists o^ the rural districts, the cultivators and yet the lords of the soil 1 Not till long after this came the Greek and Koman republics, as they are called. The pag-es of Guizot may inform us what sort of a resemblance they bore to the Hebrew commonwealth of agricultural- ists — the opulent inhabitants of the great cities constitu- ting the only elements of civil power — the government be- ing only municipal — the country peasants being their serfs, cultivating the country but not considered as hsiving peopled it — their dwellings, whatever they were, not striking the eye as houses^ not constituting hamlets and villages, like thosepresented by the Christian civilization even of modern Europe, where the standard, certainly, might be greatly elevated, and the condition of the peasantry vastly im- proved, especially their political position ! Where, in fact, from the times of the Hebrew common- wealth — where, at any period, out of Palestine, do we find the picture of a sovereign agricultural peasantry realized, till we come to the New England Colonies,* and the pre- * Throe anomalies nre, howover. to be i.oticed in these republics— fiist, llicir nominal 'JopeiHlt'iice on a fo!Ti<4ri >i.'onari.hy ; j^eeond, iheir estab- lii^hmetil of an » ccle iasiical polity by 'he st:»ie ; and tb»vd, tlifir foleniiC ofcluitU'l irilavpyy. from all ihosf ari;>nialics, the ds'uiocracy ol JNew Eng- land has suilirt'd uamafi^e ; but ll.fy I ave ad disapi t?ir* d, uiiitss we ex- cept the third. A lew slaves have boon set (ne, and lli»> sysleni aboii.-heii yet the connexion with slave holding states, and especially x\iih the slavc« ry of the Federal District, still leiuuins. DEMOCHAOt Oy OHRlSTlANlTV. 237 sent non-slaveholding North American States ? But these were patterned after the Hebrew^ and with a minuteness, in New England, especially in ecclesiastical matters, that (as already observed) betrayed them into serious error, that of attempting under the New Dispensation what was peculiar to the Old, But this error, which was tempora- ry, did not prevent them from realizing, in a good meas- ure, a re-production of the Hebrew agricultural common- wealth. Some periods in the history of England, some portions of Scotland, perhaps of Germany, Switzerland, and Holland have furnished a rural population approxi- mating in character to the model of the Hebrew. In each instance the spirit, essentially, of the same religion — though varying in outward expression and form — that shaped the Hebrew polity and gave it life, had been com- municated to the mass of the people, and with it the histo- ry and the polity of the ancient Hebrews had become more or less familiar to them. x\lore than this might be claim- ed. The corresponding political privileges, at times, and in some degree, have accompanied these qualifications for the exercise of them, the prospect of obtaining them has been yet more frequent, and could the general condition and character of the people have been made what the He- brew code requires o( its subjects, the blessings of Hebrew liberty, we may believe, would have been conferred upon them. A further illustration is presented to us in the compari- son between Europe and Asia, at two far distant periods. During the Roman republic and empire, the reign of the cities and the degradation of the rural peasantry were more strikingly marked, (as Guizot observes) throughout the European or Western portion of the Roman dominions than in the far Eastern, where at that time the patriarchal manners and virtues were not extinct, and " the population not distributed the same way as in the western world" — that is, in Italy, Spain, and the Gauls. But suppose we institute a comparison between the East and the West 11* 23S D2SI0CRACV OF CHRiS'flAKIT?. now. The European countries are dotted over with bright villacres and comfortable and respectable dwellings, not to sav elecant mansions, churches, castles, country seats, accommodated with roads intersecting each other in every direction-all which Guizot so pertinently notices as con^ trasting favorably with the times of ancient Rome. But where are the Eastern vestiges oi patriarchal simplicity now^ What have become of them! And how do the Asiatic countries compare with the European in respect to the intellectual, moral, social, and civil condition of the masses^ Alas ! we understand too well that the term Asiatic has become descriptive of despotism, unmitigated, relent- less, connected with corresponding ignorance, stupid- ity and degradation. Even continental Europe, crush- ed,' perverted, despoiled, King-ridden, and priest-ridden as she is, presents a peasantry that might almost be called intellio-eiit and free, compared with the Asiatic To what cause, are we to attribute these changes . Why sinks humanity to such depths in the soil of her an- cient freshness and beauty ? Why rises it in foreign and ungenial climes \ Why, where Noah, and Job, and Elihu, and Melchizedec, and Abraham, and Jethro once flour- ished, do the masses of men now fraternize with the brutes-while beyond the ancient confines of civilization the barbarian rises above the civilization of the ancients 1 Privileaes long abused are sometimes forfeited-light ha- ted is withdrawn-liberty outraged retires-relig.on re- jected, corrupted, at length disappears-man becoming an oppressor, is himself degraded and enslaved. The star of Jacob that went down upon the nations ot East, arose upon the people of the West. The institutions of Moses, iT^arred and perverted, were at length utterly overthrown. I'he fires on the Hebrew altars ceased to burn, the sanctuary was trodden under foot, the temple destroyed, the once chosen people scattered to the ends of the earth. But the books of Moses and the prophets went with them, diffusing light wherever they went. Those who perse- DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 239 cuted and despoiled them could not help receiving bene- fits from them. The nations of Europe became acquain- ted with the institutions of Moses, for the Christian Scrip- tures, moreover,- included those of the Hebrews. Not even the darkness of the middle ages, the double glooms of the northern barbarianism and the superstitions of a corrupt- ed Christianity could so shut out the light of the Bible as to leave Europe in Asiatic darkness, deserted as Asia at length was, by the light of the New Testament as well as the Old, the Christian as well as the Hebrew candlestick being removed from her, the Saracen having encamped in Palestine, and Mahomet having succeeded to both Moses and Jesus. Jn one word, the centuries that had intervened between the noon-day splendors of ancient Rome and the rise of modern Europe to the standard of her present civiliza- tion, had witnessed the gradual but almost absolute trans- fer of the lights of the Old and New Testaments from Asia to Europe ! Eclipsed, bedimmed, hidden, monopo- lized, proscribed as that light has been, in a large portion of Europe, especially the southern, it was nevertheless there, and could not be prevented from yielding a reflex light. Just in proportion as it has shined the masses of humanity have been cheered by its beams. But Asia has long satin still deeper glooms ; her teeming millions grope in a darkness that may be felt, for the light is not there. The institutions of Moses and the spirit that dic- tated them are totally unknown to the Asiatics, (with sol- itary exceptions) and hence there is no enlightened peas- antry, no agricultural commonwealth, nor the semblance of a population that could now without a renovation be formed into a Mosaic democracy, in all Asia ! But Moses and the prophets are not annihilated— the psalmists and the historians of Israel are not obsolete— the Divine Successor of Moses, the Messiah, his evange- lists, his apostles— all these are yet speaking to mankind. In the Old and New Testaments, imperishable as the evei»- 240 DfiMOCRAGY OF CHRISTIANITY* lasting hiils, they are yet traversing the earth, and fulfil- Jing their mission over again, to the successive generations of nrien. Their achievements have scarcely begun. They came to this Western World in the Mayflower, and a na- tion was born in a day. They have visited the Sandwich Islands, Asia, even, to distant Burmah and China^ is re ceiving again the record. There is hope for the liberties of the masses of mankind, while the record remains. The democratic institutions of Moses, the miracles of Egypt, the scenes of the wilderness and ot Sinai were not enact- ed in vain. Their influence and their power are not yet exhausted. Their course is still onward. Their main work is yet future. Though in form never to be exactly restored, their spirit is to guide and bless man, while he lives on the earth. We must not omit to notice another manifestation or tendency of the Mosaic arrangements, connected closely with the preceding, or involved in it, namely : the empha- sis they give to the family institution, and through that institution to the common brotherhood and equality of the people. Wherever autocratic arrangements are perfected we witness the powerful influence of the idea of superior rank, as derived from birth, race, family, or blood. The royal family and the nobility inflate themselves with the conscious dignity of descent from a royal and noble an- cestry, elevated above the mass of the people whose gen- ealogies have not been preserved, like their own, for many centuries in succession, and adorned with illustrious and venerated names, whose achievements belong: to the im- perishable page of history, and whose virtues are almost imagined to be hereditary Contrasting themselves with an ignoble peasantry or the rabble in the cities whose an- cestry can not be traced beyond one or two generations, nor out of the humble avocations of life, they fancy them- selves born to command and to be reverenced, and the masses of the obscure population, born to obey and almost to adore! A corresponding effect is produced on the SEMOCRACV OF CHRISTIANITY. 241 people themselves. They too are accustomed to identify the slate and its dignity^ not with the bulk bt its inhabit- ants, but with the few noble or royal families whose well- authenticated genealogy connects them with the past his- tory of their country — its achievements, its institutions, its vicissitudes. With no knowledge of their own ances- try, they learn to despise themselves, in the contrast, as an inferior race, and if they ever think of their rights at all, they only conceive of the rights of their own, class, race, or "estate,'' without so much as daring to imagine the possibility of their chiims to the rights which arc guaran- teed by the genalogies of the privileged families. In marked contrast to all this and with an evident de- sign to counteract and uproot all such aristocratic and servile imaginings, the Mosaic arrangments secured the equal nobility of the entire stock ot the chosen generation, the " kingdom of priests, the holy nation," (Ex. xix. 6.) by the public preservation of their genealogies. Not a family could there be so ignoble, so debased, so obscure, that their ancestry could not be traced back to the remotest period of the national history in its authenticated records. The most despised of the Hebrews could claim his descent from the loins of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, and one of the twelve patriarchy. The loftiest among them, in the midst of regal splendors, if he must needs aflect them, could claim no more — the meanest beggar he met in the streets was his brother, of the same noble descent with him- self, as the public records could bear witness ! The vicissi- tudes of families appeared on the same records. Solomon was seen to be the descendant of Kuth, the Moabitish gleaner, and the carpenter of Nazareth could authenticate his claim to the throne of his father David. All this was adapted not only to equalize, but to frater- nize, to cement, to unite. Whatever possessions were secured to the Hebrew, were secured to him as an integral part of the /awiYy to which he belonged. The estate of the insolvent debtor, restored in the jubilee, was restored 242 dEmooraoy of Christianity. to the family. The Hebrew in his public responsibilities, relations, rights, perquisites, privileges, found himself re- cognized in companionship with his kindred, and "all the congregation of the children of Israel, ixher theix families^ by the house of their fathers, with the number of their names," (Deut. i. 2.) and declared by their pedigrees. (v. 17.) The hereditary priesthood that in any other nation would have had an exclusive and invidious aspect, appeared congruous to the Hebrews — ^for the descendants of Levi only followed, with incidental variations, the gen- ealogical structure of the entire national edifice. Their family privileges and duties were indeed peculiar. But every other tribe and family held their rights by a similar and not less honorable tenure. The common term, "chil- dren of Israel," connecting them all with the great father of the nation, declared them all equals. Everywhere, and andnot forgetting the rights of females, the most scrupulous and solicitous attention was given to the security, the pros- perity, the dignity, and the comfort o[ families. Witness the directions concerning the daughters of Zelophehad and the statute enacted on that occasion. (Deut. xxxvi.) Wit- ness also the law of exemptions of young husbands from military service, (Deut. xx. 5-7,) and from other public business. (Deut. xxiv. 5.) The educating and refining influences of such tender and delicate precepts are not easily estimated j nor is the power of the family relation, as thus cherished and perfected, less potent in the process of that elevation of the peasantry previously noticed. Where the family is thus dignified and ennobled the mass of the people are not to be estimated and treated as the canaille. One farther feature remains to be noticed, and that is the unprecedented extent to which the ideas of human personality and individual responsibility are carried in the institutions antl arrangements of Moses. The divine purpose of having an educated and politically sovereign peasantry would require and pre-suppose this, and the OEMOCRACV OF Ciml3TIANTY« 243 nobility of each Hebrew family would strongly tend to its development. And accordingly the entire structure of the Mosaic institutions is conformed to this primary idea. In all other institutions, more or less— at least in the mo- narchical and aristocratic forms farthest removed from those of xMoses— we witness the overshadowing and well nigh annihilating and murderous ideas o^ '' the nation— the state,'' and especially the '' government— the government V as totally distinct from the people, reducing the people to meve '' subjects^' passive, inert matter, brute engines, mere machines, to be possessed, owned, mould.ed, used, wielded, at pleasure, by " the government," for '' reasons of state "—reasons having but at best a secondary and re- mote reference to the rights or even the interests of the people. To restore man to his manhood, to his allegiance to his Great Father, this perpetual immolation of the vian upon the altar of the 5^a^e, this mergingof the individual in the nation this substitution of the mandate of a government distinct from the people themselves, acting as responsible individ- uals, must be broken up. And this was one grand end and aim of the polity of Moses. No such man-destroying and heaveuMnsulting idea as that of a human civil govern- ment distinct from the mass of the people considered as responsible individuals, did it recognize. It instituted no such government— it provided for none. What it said of political duties and responsibilities it said to the '^ chil- dren of Israel "—to the people— to all of them, and laid on them the high moral responsibility of discharging them. Elsewhere than to the hortitory Deuternomy of Moses must we look for the model of those pious dissertations sometimes met with in our modern Christian literature concerning the relative duties of "the government" and its " subjects." When any thing was to be said concern- ing the proper administration of the law, it was addressed to "the children of Israel ;" when obedience to that same law was to be inculcated, the exhortation was addressed 244 DEMOCRACY OF CilftlgTIANl'rV. to the same « children of Israel." " Ye shall do '^ this or " ye shall not '' do that— or, perhaps more frequently, " thou shalt " and '^ thou shall not," thus isolating and in- dividualizing the persons addressed, is the divine form of the command, showing plainly that the 'people^ individual- ly and collectively, were held responsible for political and judicial action. If the duties of the magistrate are ad- verted to, they are the duties of an individual, a responsi- ble man, not of '■''the government,''^ or aggregate of civil rulers, considered in distinction from the people. The at- tentive reader of Moses will find how accurately and how uniformly the expressions employed are adjusted to this characteristic feature of his polity. Impressed with the importance of this Mosaic branch of our investigations, we have detained the reader a longer time in the consideration of it than we intended. To the writer, if not to the reader, it has proved a new field vast- ly richer than he could have anticipated when he com- menced the investigation. Whoever would understand and sustain free institutions should study the common- wealth of the Hebrews. CHAPTER XVIII. REVIEW OF THE HEBREW MONARCHY FROM SAUL TO ZEDEkIAH. We have dwelt too long on the times of Moses and the com- monwealth to afford the space for an equally minute attention to the remaining portion of Hebrew history. This, however, will be the less needful, if the reader, as we would trust, has been sufficiently initiated into the scope and spirit of the great lesson of the divine dealings towards that singular peo- ple. That idea, once clearly apprehended, supplies a key with which the subsequent history may be successfully studied by DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 245 any one, at his leisure. A few general remarks with a speci- men of incidents will suffice for the present discussion. The Hebrew prophets have given utterance to many things bearing directly or indirectly upon our general subject, which the attentive student would not be likely to overlook. Much of this might be appropriately cited, should we find room, when we come to exhibit the direct teachings of the Scrip- tures. We are now considermg, more particularly, the his- torical records, the prominent facts of the Bible. The pro- phetic writings, occupied as they are, to some extent, with what was then present, as well as with that which though then future, soon became history, and reverting constantly as they do to the past annals as well as to the laws and institu- tions of the Hebrews, become, as it were, part and parcel of the history, and quite essential to a proper understanding and use of it. Besides this, the prophetic books have much to do with the aftairs of the surrounding nations, and much instruc- tion on the general subject we are considering, is to be gath- ered from what the inspired prophets announced to those na- tions, or concerning them. And another portion of the prophe- cies are interestino- to us, in tracino- the democratic character and tendencies of Christianity, as revealed by its predicted ef- fects and bearings upon modern society and upon the still fu- ture condition of our species. For the present, however, and in this historical department of our investigations, we shall only revert to the prophecies as illustrating and enforcing the les- sons intended to be conveyed by the Old Testament history. This history, except what is contained in the five books of Moses, (commonly characterized as " the law") we have in the book of Joshua, the book of Judges (already considered,) the book of Ruth, the two books of Samuel, the two books of the Kings, the two books of Chronicles, the books of Esther, Ezra and Nehemiah. These brief records, or many parts of them, like other condensed outlines of history, may seem dry and uninteresting to the reader who has not come into special sympathy with the people whose vicissitudes are thus sketch- ed, nor into harmony with the grand objects of the drama pre- 246 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITV. sented, and who cherishes no particular taste for those revela- tions of moral and political cause and effect which, though wrapped up in them, are visible only to those who have be- come familiarized with the principles lying at the foundation of human society on an extended scale. And hence it comes to pass that the historical parts of the Bible are so little studied by most Christians, and some have wondered why such a book as the Bible, a book so intent on high spiritual relations, should be encumbered with so much that appears to be mere history, and that too, in its political aspect. The truth is, the spiritual revelations of the Bible have much to do with the common affairs of life, and are needed to guide us in our natural relations and the every day duties growing- out of them. And among these relations and duties the poli- tical are not the least important and comprehensive, in their bearing upon the character and welfare of mankind. The treatment that man is to receive from his fellow man, and the moral characters that are to be formed in this mutual inter- course, depend, in no small degree upon those arrangements and activities that are denominated political, that affect large communities, states, and nations, that go to determine and con- stitute the treatment of individuals by communities, and of communities by communities, that define and affect other rela- tions and duties, not excepting the family relation itself And to a thorough knowledge of political relations and duties, with the principles by which they are determined, an outline of po- litical history, illustrating the operations of moral and political causes and effects seems indispensible. If the books of the Kings, and the Chronicles would be of little value standing by themselves, the institutions of Moses, and the sublime teachings of the prophets would be far less intelligible, instructive, and impressive without them. Who- ever would understand the histor}^ become interested in it, or derive benefit from it, must read it in the double light which the previous training of the Hebrews including their institu- tions and laws, together with the glowing comments, reflec- DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 247 tions, predictions, admonitions and ^Yal•nino•s of the inspired prophets thro^v upon it. On tlie other hand, whoever Avould comprehend the scope of the prophets, the pertinency of their alkisions, and the practical applications of their doctrmes must read them in the light of the historical facts that gave occasion to the utterance of them, to which they allude, or .vhich they anticipate. Our too exclusively fragmentary, disjointed, and textual habit of reading the Scriptures, deprives us of much of their value, by breaking the natural connexion, obscuring much of their meaning, and concealing many of their beauties. The inquirer who has found the lesson of democracy wrap- ped up in the institutions of Moses, and in the previous train- ing of the Hebrews, will not fail to find the same lesson, in the subsequent Hebrew history, by reading it in the light of Moses and the prophets. To any other reader that history might suo-o-est little instruction on the subject. One general remark we- have to make concerning the history of the Hebrews from the coronation of Saul to the captivity of Zedekiah, king of Judah, a period of nearly five hundred years, is the general and continuous decline of the influence and power of the people in public affairs, especially in the ten tribes. Saul became king in obedience to the popular voice, and during his reign, the vote of the people, for good or for evil, was of commanding weight and effect. On one occasion we find them interposing a stern and dignified veto upon his autocratic and unnatural as well as unjust sentence against his son Jonathan, consigning him to death, at the very moment of his achieving a great deliverance for Israel, on the flimsy ground of his accidental and unconscious disobedience to the monarch's capricious and foolish decree, forbidding the use of food, during the day. (I. Sam. xiv.) In another instance we find the same monarch excusing his derelictions by pleading, whether truth- fully or not, that his transgression was "because he feared the people and obeyed their voice." (lb. xv.) In the feuds be- tween Saul and David, and between David and Absalom, the people had something to say— the people must needs be con- sulted, negotiations were held on David's behalf, with the peo- / 248 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. pie, and as the people determined, so the controversy was set- tled. Thus under the monarchy, in its earlier stages, the peo- ple were heard in the national councils, and the popular ele- ment, substantially, if not in form, was still recognized in the government. Gradually, as in the history of other subverted commonwealths, the voice of the people grew fainter and faint- er, till it died away, and the mandate of the monarch became law. As the democracy declined, the autocracy rose. The peo- ple sank to insignificance, and the monarch, as Samuel had predicted, filled their place, reducing them to comparative vassalage. When dynasty succeeded dynasty and kings were dethroned to make place for kings, when Zimri, (a military commander) conspired against Elah, the son of Baasha, while in a drunken revel, and slew him, and reigned in his stead, when Jehu slew and succeeded Jehoram, and destroyed Jeze- bel, and the seventy sons of Ahab, these violent revolutions, in the kingdom of Israel, appear to have taken place without the action of the inhabitants of the country in general. Military chiefs, and those under their immediate command, appear to have been the actors on these occasions. When Omri, captain of the host, dethroned Zimri, and prevailed against Tibni, the action of "the people of Israel" is indeed mentioned, but this seems to have been the action rather of the army " encamped against Gibbethon," (I. Kings xvi. 15,) than that of the inhab- itants generally in their rural dwellings. As this was but about one hundred and forty years from the commencement of the monarchy, some little trace of the popular element, at times, was visible. A similar instance occurs, at a later date, in the kingdom of Judah, above two hundred years after the subversion of the commonwealth. Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, after his death, arose, and destroyed all the seed royal, except Joash, who was secreted, and reigned over the land. In the seventh year of her reign, Jehoida, the priest, assembled the rulers over hundreds, with the captains and the guard, and commanded them to dethrone Athaliah. The peo- ple also assembled to assist, and the object was accomplished. Though in part a popular revolution, it was effected chiefly by DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 249 the army and at the command of the priest. Athaliah was slain, and Joash cinointed king. (11. Kings xi.) At an earher period, the democratic element had been far more prominent in the comparatively uncorrupted kingdom of Judah. Asa, whose reign commenced within nearly one hun- dred and forty years of the expiration of ihe commonAvealth, " did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God." (U Chron. xiv. 2.) He consulted with the people in respect to public measures {v. 7) and with them, as a con- stituent part of the nation, renewed their covenant with God. (xv. 12.) Nevertheless he fell into serious errors, and imprisoned the prophet who reproved him. " And Asa op- pressed some of the people the same time." (xvi. 7-10.) The latter part of his reign was less equitable and democratic than the beginning. Under the reign of Jehosaphat, the son of Asa, a remarka- ble approximation was made to the usages of the ancient com- monwealth. Jehosaphat " went out again through the people, from Beer- sheba to Mount Ephraim, and brought them back to the Lord God of their fathers. And he set judges in the land, through- out all the fenced cities of Judah, city by city ; and said to the judges, Take heed what ye do, for ye judge not for man^ but for the Lord, who is with you in the judgment. Wherefore now let the fear of the Lord be upon you; take heed and do it, for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of ^'ifts." — // Chron. xix. 4-7. The Court of Reference or Appeal was also re-estabhshed at Jerusalem. And in the next chapter we have an account of a great religious and political convocation of the people, on occa- sion of a threatened invasion from the children of Moab. " And Judah gathered themselves together to ask help of the Lord, even out of all the cities of Judah, they came to seek the Lord. And Jehosaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court, [and led the public devotions on that occasion by solemn prayer!] And allJudah stood before the Lord, with their wives and little ones, and their children." And the Lord heard their prayers, and delivered them from their enemies. Thu§ the rcival of religion, and the revival of 250 DEfiOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY* the spirit of brotherly intercourse, the restoration, to some ex- tent, of the ancient democratic usages, went hand in hand, and were accompanied with manifestations of the divine favor. Tliis was nearly two hundred years after the commonwealth. In contrast with this picture we might place the autocratic reign of Ahab and Jezebel over the ten tribes. The prophets of Baal were promoted and those of Jehovah were compelled hide themselves. ISTeither life nor property were secure when the avarice or caprice of the monarch were to be gratified. The judicial murder of Naboth and the confiscation of his in- heritancft appears to have produced scarcely a ripple of excite- ment among the servile and subjugated people, who held their own lives and estates under no better tenure than Ifaboth ! Not a vestige of the spirit or of the usages of democracy were visible in Israel, then ! Joash, king of Judah, the immediate successor of Athaliah, commenced his reign under the influence of Jehoidn, the priest, who had been the chief instrument of restoring to him the kingdom, and during the life-time of Jehoida he seems to have ruled equitably, and the temple, as noticed in another connex- ion, was repaired by the spontaneous contributi ^ns of the peo- ple. But after the death of Jehoidah " came the princes of Judah and did obeisance to the king; then the king hearkened unto them, and they left the Lord God of their fathers, and served groves and idols, and wrath came upon Judah and Jeru- salem fyr this trespass." — // Chron. xxiv. 17-18. Thus the nobility and the monarch led the way in apostacy. In tracing the dechne of the spirit of democracy and of the influence and power of the people in public affairs, we are also compelled to notice, and in the same history, the corresponding dechne of virtue and true godliness. And in every instance a revival of religion and sound morality is found to have been connected with the increased preponderance, influence, and po- htical activity of the people. At such periods only do they appear to be constituent parts of the state, and we nearly lose sioht of them, altogether, during the terrible intervals of auto- cratic domination, impiety, outrage, and crime. DEMOCKACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 251 From the times of Jehosopliat, onward, excepting what httle has been noticed in the dethronement and execution of the wicked Athaliah, we scarcely meet with any thing in the his- tory of the kings of Judah to remind us that there was a peo- ple to be inquired after, or to catch a ghmpse of, or who had an}^ interest, much less participancy in public affairs, till we come to the reign of Hezekiah,* about one hundred and seventy years after the reformation in the times of Jehosaphat, or three hundred and twenty after the close of the commonwealth. Hezekiah "did that which was right in the sight of the Lord," In restoring the worship of Jehovah, he took coun- sel, not only with the priests, and his princes, but with ""all the congregation in Jerusalem." (II. Chron. xxx. 2.) " And it pleased the king and all the congregation" to keep the pass- over, and to invite the people of the country to assemble with them. "And all the congregation w-orshipped." (lb. xxix. 28.) "And Hezekiah rejoiced and all the people, that God had prepared the people, for the thing was done suddenly." fib. V. 36.) This "was however at a previous convocation. At the passover " there assembled at Jerusalem, much people, to keep the feast of unleavened bread, in the second month, a very great congregation." (xxx. 13.) "And all the congre- gation of Judah, with the priests and the Levites, and all the congregation that came out of Israel, and the strangers that came out of the land of Israel, and that dwelt in Judah, re- joiced." (v. 25.) Hezekiah, on this occasion, offered pubhc prayers with and on behalf of the people, {v. 19-20.) This fraternal intercourse and co-operation seems not to have been confined to religious assemblies. On the threatened invasion of Jerusalem by Sennacherite, king of Assyria, some time after, the people and Hezekiah appear to have been ready to consult, to pray, and to co-operate harmoniously together, and God de- livered them from their adversaries without their draAvino- a * Jutharr, the grandfather of Hezekiah, " did that v hich was ritrlif in the sight oi (he Lord, howbeit the hi«h places were not r(Mnov(d, I he peo- ple sacrificed and burnt incense still in the h'fih jihuc.'-.*' — 11 Ku.gn xv. 34, 35. The idolatries of the people and nothing else is recorded ol thcni, under this reign. 252 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. sword. This reformation appears, however, to have been of short continuance, and Isaiah draws a melancholy picture of the latter part of this reign. The reigns of Manasseh and Amon, like those of a majority of the kings of Israel and of Judah, were characterized by the general prevalence and progress of wickedness, on the part of both the kings and the people. And scarcely a vestige of the principles of democratic equahty and fraternity do we find du- ring this period, though Manasseh is recorded to have become penitent during the latter part of his life. Amon died by the hands of his servants, who conspired against him. " But the people of the land slew all them that had con- spired against King Amon, and the people of the land made Josiah, his son, king in his stead." — //. Chron. xxxiii. 25. Josiah " did that which was ridit in the sio-ht of the Lord." One of his reformatory acts was to convene the great mass of the people, " both small and great," " all the men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem." When assembled Josiah himself, in person, read to them " all the words of the book of the cov- enant which was found in the hsiuse of the Lord." This must have been the covenant written by Joshua, as noticed in an- other place, a covenant to observe all the institutions of Moses. " And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant be- fore the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his com- mandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes, with all their heart, and all their soul, to perform all the words of this cove- nant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant." — //. Kings, xxiii. 3. " And the inhabitants oi Jerusalem did according to the cove- nant of God, the God of their fathers." — //. Chron. xxxiv. 32. This covenant, had it been fully and understandingly adopt- ed and carried out, not only by the inhabitants of Jerusalem, but by Josiah, and the entire nation, would have amounted to a restoration of the democratic commonwealth of Moses. But, like most other reformations, it was left incomplete and was but temporary. " We learn from the event that most of those present, who stood to the covenant, were hypocritical in the transaction." — Scott. DEMOCRACY OF ClIRICTIANITY. 253 The succeedino- kiiio-s of Judah " did evil in the sioht of the Lord" until Jerusalem was besieged and taken by the Chal- dees, the temple burnt to the ground, and Zedekiah, the king^ was carried captive to Babylon, with the principal inhftbifants of Judah and Jerusalem, leaving only " the poor of the land to be vine-dressers and husbandmen." (II. Kings, xxv.) Thus ends the history of the monarchy of Judah, " Surely, at the commandment of the Lord came this upon Judah, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Manas- seh, according tj all that he did, and also for the innocent blood that he shed, (for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood) which the Lord would not pardon." — // Kings xxiv. 3, 4, Manasseh had also " reared up altars for Baalim, and made groves, and worshipped all the hosts of heaven and served them." — // Chron. xxxiii. 3. King worship and image worship, with the abominations and bloodshed connected with them, proved the ruin of Judah as an independent nation. The spirit of true religion and of dem- ocratic fraternity and equity having disappeared, the measure of her iniquity was full. About one hundred and forty years previous to this, the same causes had terminated the history of the kings of Israel, the ten tribes, whose capital city was Samaria. The ruin of this nation which fell with her reigning dynasty, was accelera- ted in advance of the fall of Judah, by the earlier and more deeply seated triumph of irreligion and autocratic sway. The whole history of the ten tribes after their revolt from the son and successor of Solomon, may be epitomized in the oft-repeat- ed statement of the inspired historian: "Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, made Israel to sin" — "Jeroboam, the son of Nebat made Israel to sin!" The people had virtually renounced Jehovah, their rio-htful King, by choosing a succession of human kings in His stead. The fourth of these proved wholly recreant to the institutions of Moses. His sojourn in Egypt appears to have confirmed him in his love of idolatry and of autocratic power. What marvel that he should have set up images in Bethel and in Dan — the symbols and ensigns, perhaps, of dead heroes or kings — and 12 254 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. worship them as gods, aspire to be a god himself, and seduce the people from the worship of Jehovah ? Of all the successors of Jeroboam on the throne of Israel, not one of them " did that which was right in the sight of the Lord" — not one of them that did not " walk in the way of Jero- boam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin" — not one of them that did not appear to cherish and to exercise to the ut- termost, the prerogatives of autocratic authority and power — not one of them appeared to manifest the spirit of brotherly fraternit}' with the people, or invited them to any share in the o'overnment — not one of them attempted to restore the demo- cratic judiciary of Moses, or to renew in companionship with the people the covenant of Jehovah, their God. One over- whelming flood of impiety, demoralization, and despotism, with scarcely an incidental intermission, is seen flowing from the thrones of the kings of Israel and their profligate courts, over the length and breadth of the land. Idolatry and servility, two phases of the same thing, were every where witnessed. The worship of Baal and Ashteroth assorted well with admiration of Jeroboam and implicit obedience to Ahab. Intermarriages and treaties of affinity between the royal families of Israel and Judah injected into the veins of the latter kingdom the same fatal poison that had destroyed the former. Of the people of the ten tribes, after the accession of Jero- boam, the son of Nebat, w^e hear little except what is recorded of their servihty and their wickedness in walking in the steps of their kings. They seemed to have lost the desire and almost the capacity to think and act for themselves, as responsible men. Their highest ambition was to obey and imitate their- mao-nificent and idolized kings ! AVherever their kings went they were ready, blindfold, to follow. Their voluntary relin- quishment of the high moral and political responsibilities com- mitted to them, appears to have deprived them of moral vision, as those lose the use of their eyes or other bodily senses who abuse them or who refuse to employ them. Only one or two exceptions present themselves in the en- tire history — only one or two instances in which the people or DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 255 any considerable portion of them adventured to liave any con- sciences of tlieir own in respect to public afTairs, or to lisp an expression adverse to the ^vishes and tastes of the reigning king. On one occasion a prophet of the Lord named Oded, addressing himself to the people, not to their king, persuaded them to liberate and restore to their frfcnds, the captives Avhom they had taken from the land of Jiidah, in war. (II Chron. xxviii.) When Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal, appeal- ing to the. jyeople and not to king Ahab, though in his presence, to decide whether Jehovah or Baal should be publicly recof^- nized as the true God — when the fire came down from the Lord and consumed the burnt sacrifice — then " when all the people saw it they fell on their faces and said, The Lord, He is the God, the Lord, He is the God!" Under the impulse of the moment they forgot their idolatrous and idolized monarch, -ac- knowledged their true King, and proceeded at Elijah's com- mand to arrest the prophets of Baal, the favoi-ites of king Ahab and his queen Jezabel. This, however, was but a temporar}^ excitement, as Elijah understood, and therefore hid himself in anticipation of a re-action. Though the Lord had reserved to himself seven thousand men who had not bowed the knee to Baal, yet these were too few in comparison with the whole na- tion, or too timid and hesitant in view of the king's power and the prevailing servility, to attempt the recovery of their rights, or the restoration of the national covenant, made by Joshua and the people of his times to maintain the institutions of Mo- ses. The people of Israel in abjuring the religion he taught them repudiated their own liberties and political authority of course, and placed themselves at the meroy of despots. 256 DEMOCRACY OF CnRISTIANITT. CHAPTER XIX. SCENES OF BABYLON AND SHUSHAN. Of the ten tribes no farther record has come down to us. Of the captives of Judah and Benjamin, in Babylon and Shusan, some instructive accounts are preserved. The prophet Daniel was among these, and gives us some re- markable narratives of God's methods to humble the pride of despots and check the unlimited arrogance of autocra- tic power, and also of the faithful practical testimonies of pious Hebrews on that subject, and the divine approbation and protection of them. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, like most autocrats, exalted himself in God's stead, and demanded the honors, the worship, and the obedience due only to the Creator. He was also a worshipper of dumb idols, and earnestly intent on promoting the veneration of them among his subjects. It is from no mere accidental coincidence that the most absolute despots are commonly given to super- stitious idolatries, and zealous for maintaining the wor- ship of false gods and the images of them among the peo- ple. Whoever attempts to exalt himself above the natural and common level of the humanity of which he was made a partaker, can not fail to sink himself beneath the dignity of a true man. The vanity that desires servile homage is nearly akin to the servility that renders it. If the auto- crat cherished no affinities for servility he would be dis- gusted, not gratified, when he himself was offered the in- cense of it. The truly noble mind is made such by its veneration of God, and instinctively repels all servile and idolatrous approaches with the apostolic " Sirs, why do ye these things V (Acts xiv. 15) or with the angelic '^See thou do it not !" (Rev. xxii. 9.) The connection between king-worship and image-worship which we noticed in the story of Pharaoh and Egypt, is equally visible in the an- DEMOCRACY^ OF CHRISTIANITT. 257 nals of the kings of Babylon. Aspiring to be as gods themselves — the first sin of our first parents — and intend- ing that their own statues and fanriily ensigns — whether stars, suns, calves, crocodiles, or lions — should be ven- erated by their descendants and by the people in coming ages, it stood them in hand to see to it that the statues and ensigns of their predecesors, especially of their an- cestors, should not fall into contempt. We would not atfirm that all the image-worship of the ancient heathen can be traced directly in the manner hint- ed at to the worship of heroes and kings. Inanimate ob- jects and the supposed elements of nature, sun, moon, stars, fire, animals, vegetables, and implements of utility may have come, in time, to be worshipped on other grounds ; but there are historical as Vv'ell as philosoph- ical data for the belief that man-u^orship took the lead of all the ancient idolatries, and either directly or indi- rectly introduced all the rest. Man ceases to be a wor- shipper of God only because he has become a worshipper of himself. In the subsequent struggles of rivalry he is often compelled to yield homage to some stronger self in the person of a fellow man. Estranged from his God lie finds no nobler object of worship than the strongest man. No v^here else, not even in the sun, can he find so much — notwithstanding human infirmity — that seems to him like the image of God. The strong man first, then his statue, or ensign, or coat-of-arms becomes the god of the millions. The names and histories of many of the ancient di- vinities are identified with the traditionary history of some powerful man. Thus Ham, the son of Noah, who first planted Egypt and Lybia, became the god of those coun- tries under the name of Hammon or Ammon, afterwards Jupiter Ammon, and Alexander the Great, who aspired to be a god, hired the priests of Jupiter Ammon to declare him the son of that divinity. Menes, the founder of the Egyptian monarchy, was worshipped as a god after his death, and is supposed to have been the same as Misraim, 258 DEMOCRACY OF GHRISTIANITT. the son of Ham. Uranus, Saturn, Pluto, and Neptune^ heathen divinities, are supposed to have been kings and princes among the ancient Grecians. Buddh, an eastern prince and philosopher, cotemporary with Daniel, the pro- phet, is still the god of Siam. Confucius is worshipped as a god in China. Woden and Thor were first chiefs and then gods among the Saxons. Hero-worship, king-wor- ship, and saint-worship are the basis of idolatrous image- worship. Even Napoleon, in his day, was solemnly can- onized, and every year, almost, adds to the calendar. Nebuchadnezzar lived at a time when hero-worship, king-worship, and image-worship were at their height, and among a people with whom the propriety of the whole was unquestioned. Nebuchadnezzar was himself a god in the eyes of his subjects, and in his own eyes — his au- thority was unlimited, supreme — his mandate, like that of the Phariohs, was law. He had heard, doubtless, of the God of the Hebrews j but the Hebrews were his ca-ptives, and Israel was a conquered and dispersed nation. The Jehovah of the Hebrews he may have supposed to have been one of their dead monarehs &r heroes — whoever he was he must have been worsted by the divinities of Bab- ylon — so he imagined. At any rate he himself was god over his own territory and entitled to be worshipped there, whoever might be the god of the land of Canaan. The Assyrians who had been removed into- Samaria, after the conquest of the ten tribes, had indeed been compelled, on account of the lions sent by Jehovah among them, to do Him a sort of homage, and professed priests of Jehovah had been procured to " teach them the manner of the God of the land." (i\ Kings xvii. 26.) A corresponding com- ity would require that the Hebrews residing in Babylon should pay an equal deference to the gods who reigned there. So Nebuchadnezzar may have argued, and the theology whatever we may think of it, was the nat- ural result of the autocratic principle then maintained. If all autocrats and those who bow down to them do DEMOCRACi^ OF CHRISTIANITY. -o9 iiot go to the full length of all this, it is only because the principle has been counteracted and held in check by op- posite teachings. In Babylon the principle had its full scope. ^^ " Nebuchadnezzar, the king, made an image of gold, and " set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon." He summoned the princes, the governors, the captains, the judges, the counsellors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces throughout his empire, to at- tend the dedication of this image. Among these rulers were three Hebrew youths, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed- nego, whom the king had previously promoted to high sta'tions. it was taken for granted that they were to be present and participate in the appropriate solemnities and ceremonies of the occasion. It was doubtless known that they were Avorshippers of Jehovah, the God of their fath- ers ; but why should that prevent them from showing a decent respect for the gods of Babylon ? Were they not officers under Nebuchadnezzar, who was one of them ; and if the Assyrians in the land of Israel could "fear Jeho- vah, and yet serve their own gods," Succoth-benoth, Ner- gal,' Ashima, Adrammelech, and Andrammelech, (H Kings xvii. 27-il) why could not these young Hebrews show au equal superiority to vulgar prejudices, and conform them- selves to the circumstances of the times in which they were placed ^ They were not required to pay exclusive or supreme homage to this god of the Babylonians ; it it not certain that they themselves regarded him as tho su- preme God. They were not called upon to say which they regarded as having the precedence, the god whose statue was set up in Dura, or the Jehovah of the Hebrews. All that was demanded of them in respect to the former was that they should do before him the customary act of rev- erence. As to the literal worship of the image itself, it is not to be supposed that l hat was expected of them. The image was only the symbol or representation of the real obiect of the Babylonian reverence, probably one of their 260 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIAlS'ITT. powerful and perhaps virtuous and heroic chieftains of a former age. Not one in a hundred among the heathen, ancient or modern, but would tell us — as the Roman Cath- olics do — that it is not the image but only the being or characteristics represented by it, that they worship. With these reserved riews of the matter, why might not the young Hebrews comply ? Might not the hero, or the at- butes of strength, wisdom, or goodness, intended to be thus symbolized, b3 deserving of a decent regard 1 Had they been schooled in the philosophy of hero wor- ship and of king worship as cherished and taught by some in our times — had they learned from the same school that the abstract qualities of strength, wisdom, and goodness, wherever found, are the proper objects of human adoration — that all the beings and things that can be regarded either as the possessors or the symbols of these qualities are entitled, along with the great Jehovah, to a proportionate share of our adoration, thus introdu- cing an almost infinite variety and gradation of the prop- er yet subordinate objects of worship — had they learned, moreover, that graven images are only the symbols, the hieroglyphics, the alphabet of those who had no other letters, that the use of them is proper, provided the ven- eration be not transferred from the quality or thing sym- bolized to the gross block of wood, metal, or marble, rep- resenting it, (a grossness, to the charge of which, nine- tenths of the heathen would plead " not guilty,") — had the three Hebrew youths been inducted into the sublime mysteries o{ such a philosophy, so manifestly akin to that which lay at the basis of the ancient idolatries and des- potisms they might have found it less difficult to comply with Nebuchadnezzar's decree. We would avoid doing injustice to the philosophy in question. Some sublime truths it must have, of course, like all other false systems, or it could have no power to mislead. The masters of this school would not become image worshippers in the gross sense. Thej'^ might in- DEMOCRACY Di- CtlRlSTiANiTV. 261 deed have no need of the use of images themselves. And image worship, when they think it abused, they are quite wiilinof to see overturned. For the '' imas^e breaker," in such cases^ they express a deg-ree of respect. Nay, the 'Strong image breaker they might reverence as a hero, de- serving of a costly statue and a share ot hero worship, in his turn. But its image breaking and its image building would be likely to go hand in hand. The three Hebrews at the court of Babylon were of sterner materials. They had been trained in quijte anoth- er school — the school of Moses. They knew nothing of the divine right of kings — nothing of the worship of he- roes—nothing of the supreme authority in human beings • — nothing of the binding force of autocratic power. They had studied — notwithstanding the intervening Hebrew monarchy— the principles o( the ancient Hebrew common- wealth. The democratic idea of man, and the corres- ponding idea of God, the Father oC man, were not wholly eradicated from their minds. They remembered the W'Ords of the Decalogue. " Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. * * Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them." Like Paul at Mars' Hill, they were ready to abjure the use, not simply the abuse, of such symbols. " Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven bj'- art and man's de- vice." — ^cts xvii. 29. From the Hebrew prophet Isaiah, they had heard similar language, and in a similar con- nexion — '* To whom then will ye liken God 1 Or what iikencss will ye compare unto him 1" — Isa. xl. 18. Where neither hero worship, king worship, nor saint worship have first corrupted or superseded the worship of Jehovah, the people can be in little danger of worship- ping graven images er even of thinking them suitable symbols of the object of worship. The lengthened dis- tance between the spiritual worship of Jehovah and the 12* 262 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIAJIinf gross worship of brute matter, or even its use as a sym- bol, is not to be taken at one stride. There must be in- termediate steps. What can they be but the worship of the compound and intermediate creature man, allied at once to the Divinity and to the dust of the earth 1 Had it not been for autocracy, despotism^ monarchy, aristoc- racy or prelacy, in some of their varied forms,* such a phenomenon as image worship or the use of them in re- ligion would seem unaccountable and incredible. The student of Christian church history may notice this hint and examine the subject at his leisure. God had a double object to accomplish by the captivi- ty of the Hebrews in Babylon. He meant to chastise arid reform his chosen people 5 and also to reprove and in- struct the idolatrous autocrat of Babylon and his servile dependants. Yet the two objects were one. In both di- rections he meant to strike a blow at image worship and the man worship that lay at the foundation of it. The scenes of Dura form one act of the drama providentially arranged for this purpose. The three Hebrews persisted in their refusal to obey the monarch or do homage to his image. They were cast into the fiery furnace, and their miraculous preservation while their appointed execution- ers were consumed, conveyed the lesson designed. The impotence of the gods of Babylon, her reigning monarch included, was exhibited in striking contrast to the Jeho- vah of the Hebrews, the only living and true God. This miracle was wrought, not less to confound the living god of the Chaldees than their dead one — not less to reprove the idolatrous homage paid to Nebuchadnezzar than the worship of the golden image set up in Dura. It was a miracle wrought against the principle of autocracy prevailing in Babylon as truly as against the practice of statue veneration that had grown out of it. if any one doubts this, let him pursue the thread of the * Of these — not excepting the [irelacy — the Hebrew commonwealth, as has already been shown, was to coniani no specimens. DEMOCRACY OF CHAtatLVNltV. fig^ *iarrative to the sequel. Nebuchadnezzar, it seems, had been constrained to acknowledge that there was no other God that could deliver, like the God of the Hebrews. His confinence in his golden inmage and the dead god it represented was greatly shaken, if not destroyed* There was one of the gods of Babylon, however, whom he still thought deserving of worship^ and that god was himself! He may have fallen into the mistake of supposing that only the worship of the dead gods or of their statues had boen reproved by the miracle that had taken place. What- ever check may have been given to the practice of vene- rating dead gods and their images, the principle of autoc* racy and king worship, the root of the whole mischief, his own pride and self-exaltation still remained. If the golden gods and the dead monarchs and heroes could no longer accomplish anything, Ae, at least was a living and reigning god, still, whom nations obeyed and at whose mandate great cities were builded. Of this, though fore- warned of his destiny, he could not forbear boasting : "Is not this great Babylon that I have built, for the house of the kingdom, by the mjght of my power, and for the hon- or of my majesty 1" That is, am not I a king — a hero — deserving of glory and renown 1 So the hero worship- pers around him supposed, and reverently bowed down to him. He had " grown and become stro7ig ; his great- ness was grown and reached unto heaven, and his domin- ion to the end of the earth." Who might claim, if he couJd not, the divine right of kings I Was not kingship to be predicated of strength ? Were not his achievements, his strength, his greatness, his kingly powers deserving of veneration 1 So the then prevalent philosophy of king worship assured him ; and so it discourses even to this daJ^ But what was the sentence of heaven pronounced upon him. " They shall drive thee troni men, and tliy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the held, and they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over 264 v^^iocuAot Gt- cfmisfUSitri thee^ until thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoeter He wilL" ♦' The sanrie hour was the thing fulfilled" — the plain import of which is that when the strongest and greatest of men aspire to unlimited power over their brethren and lord it orer them as gods^ receiving and claiming homage from them, God regards them as having forfeited their equal station among their fellows, Affecting to rise above them they sink in reality below them^ and become brutish, like the beasts of the field. When they come to themselves, like the king oi Babylon — ^^if they ever do — ■- they will '^ extol and honor the God of heaven,'' and learn that '* all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing" in His presence^ There is little scope or dis- position for king worship, then* Nebuchadnezzar was succeeded by Belsfia^zar, his son. Though he knew the story of his father, he " lifted up himself against the God of heaven,'^ and insulted Him irj his revelries, drinking wine with his princes^ his wives, and his concubines, out ot the silver Vessels taken by his father from the temple of Jehovah, at Jerusalem, *'They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver,- of brass, of iron^ of wood, and of stone," but "the God in whose hand was bis life, and breath, and whose wer6 all his ways," he did not glorify. What else could be expected in the atmosphere ot an autocratic court / Coulfl the reigning despot claim and receive a homage not accorded by himself, his princes, his ^vives, and his concubines, to the memory of his illustrious predecessors and fathers, as represented by their ensigns, their sym- bols, and statues 1 Of how could he worship no God but the common and equal Father of all men, and yet retain over the masses the unlimited dominion of a supefrior be- ing, a divinity, a god 1 Had not even the kings of Israel and Judah, in order to fortify the claims of their kingly majesty over the people, been compelled to repudiate the exclusive worship of such a God 1 This God of the CEMdciiAct 0^ ciiRisTUNltir. 263 masses, to whom every body might look up, calling Him Father, might be a vefy good God in His place^ and do Well enough for the captiVe Hebrews : but the gods of the princes of Babylon were now to be honored^ and what could be more appropriate than that the vessels taken from the temple of the conquered God of the Hebrews should do service on such an occasion 1 Thoughts like these we may imagine to have passed through the mmd of Belshazzar as the banquet was pre^ paring and as it went forward. "In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand^ and wrote over against the candlesticiv upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace ; and the king saw the part of th.e hand that wrote. * * Then the king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the sooth- sayers'' — In vain ! " They could not read the writing or make known the interpretation thereof," till DanAel, " of the children of the Captivity" appeared, and declared it. " Mene, rnene^ tekel, upharsin. -^God hath numbered thy kincrdom, and finished it. Thou art weighed in the bal* ances, and art found wanting. Thy kingdom is divided and given to the IMedes and Persians." " In that night was Belshazzar, the king of the Chalde^ ans slain, and Oariusj the Median took the kingdom." Another rebuke of autocratic impiety and pride! Darius ought to have profited by the scenes that had been enacted at Babylon. He seems to have been one of the noblest of his class of men ; but how difficult is it to hold the position of an autocrat and not imagine one's self a divinity to whom all around must pay divine honors! Thus it was with Darius. How readily he gave his sanction to a decree that for the space of thirty days no one should offer a prayet or petition of any god or man but himself! The obvious intent and significancy of this was to confirm his autocratic authority in his new empire — to make it felt and understood that he was indeed a god — not inferior to any of the divinities ever worshipped at Babylon — nay, that he was now to be recognized and 260 DEMOCRACY OF OIIRISTIANITY. reverenced throughout his dominions as superior to each and all of them^ not excepting the Jehovah of the He- brews, of whose power, by this time, the Chaldeans must have received some impressionsj This confirms the view we have before taken of the na- ture of autocratic authority, and of the close connexion, % not to say identity of autocracy and idolatry among the ancientSi Not even Bel himself, the god of the Babylonians, after whom the lather of Belshazzar was proud to surname him as his heir apparent-^ not Bel, who for many generations had been wor- shipped as a god, and to whom temples and images had been consecrated — the golden stutue at Dura being per- haps one of them — could be accounted, for thirty days, on an equality with Darius ! And we may repeat here the demand we made concerning the Pharaohs and Egypt- how could God reprove the ancient heathen idolatries without reproving the claims of autocratic power ^. The necessity of such impious pretensions to the con- firmed supremacy of an absolute autocrat in those days, may be seen and illustrated in the case of Darius. He seems not to have been personally emulous of divine hon- ors aside from the political advantages connected with it. His presidents, princes, and governors had devised the measure, and he must needs comply with it for reasons of state. Unlike his immediate predecessors on the throne of Babylon, and unlike the Pharaoh who withstood Mo- ses, Darius was not so besotted as to suppose himself su- perior to the God of the Hebrews. His langua'ge to Daniel, " Thy God whom thou servest continually. He will deliver thee," is a sufficient proof of his knowledge in that direc- tion. But the stability of his throne, in the view of his " presidents, princes, and governors, must needs be secured, and so he must assent to the impious decree. To have refused would havebeen to lose caste among the great mon- archs of antiquity who were all gods, and so Darius must needs be a god with the rest of them. DEMOOIIAOY OF OHRISTIANITV. 267 But no Hebrew, without abjuring the God of his fath- ers — who permits no king-worship, no hero-worship, no saint-worship, and shares not His divine honors with any other gods— could submit to the decree of Darius. The enemies of Daniel, the Hebrew, understood this and anti- cipated his refusal ; but they did not foresee his deliver- ance from the den of lions, nor their own deserved pun- ishment. Their terrible destruction and the proclamation of Darius recognizing the God of Daniel constituted an* other act of the great Providential drarna by which the worship of both the living and the dead gods of the an- cients was reproved in the sight of all men. Even the masses of community and the most menial of them must have learned to abate, somewhat, of the reverence they had paid to their kings — to perceive that monarchs were but men, as they themselves were — to conceive of Jeho- vah's supremacy and of man's equality with man — to be less idolatrous, less degraded, less servile. Such, at least, was the lesson provided for them. Nor is it to be believed that the magnificent scenes of Babylon were enacted in vain, any more than those of Egypt, or lost to the nations and the ages that came afterward. Kingly power, in Europe, to-day, and even in Central Asia, may be less intolerable on account of thechecksthen interposed against autocratic assumption. Darius, the Median, was succeeded by Cyrus, the Per- sian. The seat of empire was transferred to Shushan, and Ahasuerus filled the throne, and " reigned even from Jndia to Ethiopia, over an hundred and seven and twenty provinces." Here opens another gorgeous scene of Eas- tern magnificence and autocratic power. Of the people, we see little — all is swallowed up in splendoi- of the king • — " his palace, his white, green, and blue hangings, fas- tened with cords of fine linen and purple, to silver rings and pillars of marble, the beds gold and silver upon a pavement of red, and blue, and white, and black marble." The moral features of the picture correspond and har- monize — a festival of princes for six months in succes- S68 tifiMOCRACl^ OP CllRlSttAiJttVi sion— royal wine in abundance — the king's vanity — th^ queen's pride — the divorce — the hararn — no Jaw but the royal caprice— no security but the vicissitudes of his favor - — life and death suspended upon the motion of his finger L What a contrast to the court of the congregation in the time of Moses ! Here too we have the intrigues of cour* tiers, the ambition of Ham.an, the murderous decree against the Hebrew captives. The story of Mordecai and Esther presents us with a contrast between the manners and the morals of Asiatic autocracy, as seen in the court of Ahasuerus on the one hand, and the simple dignity in* duced by the Mosaic course of training on the other. In Mordecai we see something of the sturdy democracy of the ancient Hebrew commonwealth, disdaining to bow be- fore the unprincipled but courtly favorite of royalty, even in the king's gate. The God of the Hebrews in His all" controlling Providence was there with him and his op- pressed brethren, and the sequel of the story tells on which side that Providence was enlisted. At Shushan \ve meet with no royal decrees requiring the worship of images or prohibiting prayer to any but the king! The scenes of Babylon were still in remembrance — the pro- clamations of Nebuchadnezzar and Darius were still fresh on the public records. The prophet Ezekiel was " among the captives by the l-iver ot Ghebar" when he 'saw the visions of GJod." A large portion of his message was addressed directly to the captives, reproving them for their sins, exhorting them to repentance, and thus preparing the way for their return to their oWn land. At the same time, in connexion with the scenes enacted at Babylon, his writings may have af* fected deeply the Chaldeans and their kings,. DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 269 CHAPTER XX. THE RESIORATION — THE REBUILDING OF THE TEMPLE AND WALL OF JERUSALEx^I. The scenes of Babylon and Shushan were well calcula- ted to prepare the way for the return and establishment in their own country of a select remnant of the Hebrews with the assent and assistance of the reigning mo^iarchs of Chaldea and Persia. The better portion of the Hebrew captives were led by their calamities to reflection and re- pentance. The wisest of the kings who held them in captivity were impelled to yield homage to Jehovah, to re- lax their grasp on His worshippers, and even to assist in the restoration of His worship, which could not but include, to some extent, the restored rights of the worshippers. The tolerated worship of the true God, the Father of all men, is of itself a relaxation, to no small extent, of the claims of autocracy — a fact which the story of the re- stored remnant of the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem is well-adapted to illustrate. The demand by Moses, *' Let my people go that they may serve mc," contained an im- plication of the same truth, which Pharaoh appears to have understood. The supplication and confession ot Daniel recorded in the ninth chapter of the book bearing his name, with the prayers and confessions of Ezra, Nehemiah, and the peo- ple of the captivitj'^, which appear on their records — the proclamation of Cyrus in the first chapter of Ezra — the charter of Artaxerxes to Ezra, (Chapter vii.) of Artaxerx- es to Nehemiah, (Neh. ii.) and the decree of Darius (Ezra vi.) are sufficient data for the statements we have just now made concerning the changed state of sentiment both among a portion ol the captivity and of the monarchs that reigned over them One of the most remarkable features of the times of 2/0 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. the restoration was the re-appearance of the people as an element of civil society, and their activity in public affairs, contrasting- strongly with the prevalent aspect of things under the Hebrew dynasties before the captivity. The proclamation of Cyrus is a recognition of the people of Jehovah. Having learned something of the God of the Hebrews, that monarch seems to have understood that where He was worshipped there was a people to be recog- nized, and that ^o Me??i the appeal was to be made for their spontaneous co-operation and action, if the temple of Jehovah was to be builded. " Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He hath charged me to build Him an house at Jerusalem which is in Judah. Who is there among you, of all His people 1 His God be with him and let him go up to Je- rusalem which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel (He is the God) which is in Jerusa- lem. And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of the place help him with silver and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, besides the free will offering for the house of God which is in Je- rusalem." "Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Jadah and Benjamin, and the priests jlnd the Levites, with all them whose spirit God had raised, to go up to build the house of God which is at Jerusalem." — Ezra i. 2-5. None went by compulsion — all was free, voluntary, un- constrained. JNor does it appear that anyone, in the first place, was invested with authority from the monarch, to exercise a control over his brethren. After a record of their names and families, in the second chapter, we are told of the voluntary contributions of the principal men, according to their ability, and of the occupancy of dif- ferent cities by the Levites and some of the people. " Joshua, the son of Jozedac, and his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel, the son of Shealthial," were among the most active and prominent. The latter appears to have been called governor. The prophet Haggai speaks of DEMOCRACY OF CliUrSTIANITY. 271 Joshua as being high priest, and Zerubbabel as being governor. The high priesthood was probably in the reg- ular line of succession. Whether Zerubbabel held any- official position under commission of Cyrus, does not ap- pear, but it is evident that, if it wore so, his primary nomination must have been by the people. Nehemiah, a long time afterwards, was commissioned by Artaxerxes with a special embassy and for a limited period, but the record contains no grant of civil authority. It is quite remarkable, as is noticed by commentators, that on his arriving at Jerusalem, he cautiously abstained from pre- senting his commission, till he had reconnoitered the ground, and, addressing the people as brethren, had ex- horted them to build the wall, and obtained their free consent and co-operation, in the object of his mission. (Neh. ii.) " Nehemiah seems to have used every precaution to conceal his intentions, till he had obtained the unanimous consent of the people^ and they were actually employed in the work." — Scott. The fraternal bearing and democratic habits of Nehe- miah, especially his forbearing to make himself burthen- some to the people for his support, place him in striking contrast with the kings of Babylon and the monarchs of Israel and Judah. Nehemiah is also called the " tirsha- thii," or governor, and he evidently was so by the choice of the people, whatever may have been his commission from the king. The charter of Artaxerxes by Ezra, (above twenty years after the first expedition of Jerubbabel and his com- panions) conferred authority upon him to " set magis- trates and judges which may judge the people beyond the river, all such as know the laws of thy God, and teach them that know not." (Chap, vii.) "It is remarkabie that a heathen prince should lay no other restriction on Ezra and his brethren in disposing of the treasures they collected, except that they should be em- ployed after thy will of their God. The whole commission 272 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. implied a chartered right to the Jews to live according to their own laws.^"* — ^cott. If these provisions were fully carried out, as we have no reason to question they were, the " magistrates and judges" were " set" according to the " laws of God" by the hand of Moses — that is, they were elected by the people. We know that, in Nehemiah's time, when the people were assembled en masse^ with fasting, with their Levites, priests, and governor, they solemnly renewed the national covenant and sealed it, and "entered into a curse and oath to walk in God's law, which was given by Moses, the servant of God, and to observe to do all the commandments of the Lord our God, His judgments and His statutes." This was equivalent to the covenant in the time of Joshua, and it restored — so far as any public act of the kind, on their part, and in their dependant condition could restore it — the ancient Hebrew common- wealth. Throughout the records of Ezra and Nehemiah, we see, everywhere, the revived political existence, activity, and responsibility of the people. The commission or charter to Ezra, already noticed, couples with him, his " brethren'^ in Judah (Ez. vii. 18,) as having direction, along with him, of the " free will offerings" he was to carry from their brethren in Babylon. In the important public transac- tions recorded in the tenth chapter of Ezra, '• all Israel" was party to the solemn oaths there recorded. " All the congregation" responded to the appeals then made to them. " And the children of the captivity did so." The building of the wall, in the time of Nehemiah is narrated as the work oi the people ; various descriptions and avo- cations of whom, with their several achievements are enu- merated in detail 5 the whole account conveying the im- pression that it was done spontaneously, yet with great order, requiring mutual concert and co-op?ration, intelli- gence and public spirit.. On one occasion the people of "Judah said — the stren^rth of the bearer of burthens is DEMOCRACY OF CHKISTIANIT V. 273 decayed, and there is mucii rubbish, so that we are not able to build the wall." They felt the burthen of the re- sponsibility they had assumed, to be a heavy one. Great assemblies and convocations of the people were common. The eighth chapter of Nehemiah contains an account of one of them, in which they assembled to listen to the reading ofthe law — the same law that contained the char- ter of their political rights. One of the most remarkable political agitations on record is to be found in the fifth chapter of Nehemiah. There arose a complaint on the part of the poorer portion of the people that they had been compelled to mortgage their lands, vineyards, and houses, to buy corn, because ofthe dearth. Others of them had borrowed money for the king's tribute, upon similar securities. Their wealth- ier brethren were therefore coming into possession of their estates, and some of their sons and daughters were coming into bond service to them for the payment of these debts. They were greatly distressed and knew not what to do. Their cry came to the ears of Nehemiah 5 he was the governor of the province. The chief men, and nobles, and rulers of Judah, with some of the priests it would seem — the natural associates and assistants of Ne- hemiah — were the capitalists and creditors in this case, and had undoutedly considered it a fair business transac- tion. Had Nehemiah cherished the sentiments or pursued the policy of most men in similar stations, he would have been silent, or would have upheld the claims of the nobles, and rulers, and men of wealth. Exactly the opposite of this was his course. He reproved them openly, and made no secret of his indignation against them — he contributed, of set purpose, to increase the popular agitation — he con- vened an immense mass meeting, a people's convention — he " set a great assembly" against the claimants — in their presence he publicly remonstrated against their exactions, and conjured them to restore the estates, and also an hundreth part of their original demands. 274 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. *' Then they said, We will restore them, and exact no- | thing- of them.'' Nehemiah " took an oath of them that 1 they should do according to this promise." Also he " shook his lap and said, So God shake out every man from his house, and from his labor, that performeth not his prom- ise, even thus shall he be shaken out and emptied. And all [the congregation said. Amen, and praised the Lord. And the people did according to this promise. This commonwealth must have been somewhat radically democratic to have survived an agitation of this charac- in which the chief magistrate was leader. The "nobles" could have wielded little or no exclusive power. The re- vival of the spirit of democracy and of the usages of the commonwealth was simultaneous with a corresponding reformation of morals^ the restoration of a purer worship, and the revival ot true religion. The convocations already mentioned were seasons of humiliation, confession, in- struction, amendment and consolation. The restored brotherhood of the people and their veneration of Jeho- vah, their Common Father, went hand in hand. While the Hebrew reformers were thus distinguished for their democratic spirit, their adversaries, the subtle enemies of Jehovah and His worship, who plotted con- stantly the defeat of the w^ork of restoration, were in all respects of an opposite character, the sycophants and spies of autocratic power. Though pretending to be wor- shippers of Jehovah themselves, and proposing co-opera- tion with the restored captives of Judah, they art^'ully la- bored to frustrate and destroy them. In the times of Ze- rubbabel and Joshua they " hired counsellors against them to frustrate their purpose," and wrote letters to king^l Ahasuerus representing that Jerusalem was " a rebellious city and hurtful to kings" — that *' this city of old time hath made rebellion against kings, and that rebellion and sedition hath been made therein." By this means they excited the jealousy of the king, and caused the work -of building the temple to cease until the second year of the reign of Darius. DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 275 111 the times of Nehemiah a similar opposition was car- ried on by Sanbailat, and Tobiah, and Geshom, the Ara- bian, with their confederates. They, in like manner, represented that the Jews intended to rebel against the grand monarch, and bj various arts endeavored to decoy, to intimidate, and to annoy them. The prophecies of Haggai, Zcchariah, and Malachi, the last three books of the Old Testament, were written in Judaii after the return of the captives, and shed some light on the characteristic features of this period. The reproofs of Haggai directed to both the rulers and the people, together with the encouragements and exhorta- tions addressed to them, in respect to public aflairs, im- ply plainly, as the language of the earlier prophets had done, the political responsibilities of the people. The ex- hortations, the warnings, and the predictions of Zechariah lead us to conceive that oppression was one of the sins to which the people and their priests and rulers were ex- posed. " Thus saith the Lord my God, Feed the flock of the slaughter whose possessors slay them, and hold them- selves not guilty, and they that sell them say, Blessed be the Lord, for I am rich ; and their own shepherds pitj^ them not. For I w^ill no more pity the inhabitants of the land, saith the Lord, but lo ! 1 will deliver the men every one into his neighbor's hand, and into the hand of his kins', and they shall smite the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them." — Chap. xi. 4>-6. This has been thought a prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and the language certainly resembles that of the Savior not long before that event : " Ye devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers, therefore ye shall receive the greater damna- tion." The book of the prophet Malachi contains some bold re- proofs of the priests, warnings against the sin of oppress ion, pathetic appeals to people on the claims of iuinmn brotherhood, and of the familv relation." 276 DEMOCRACY OF CnRISTIANITT. " And now, O ye priests, this commandment is to you. If ye will not liear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Uord of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your bless- ings ; yea, 1 have cursed them already because ye do not lay it to heart. Behold I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your sol- emn feasts, and one shall take you away with it!" — MaL ii. 1-3. This is not the language of a sycophant of prelacy, nor (as the prophet does not appear to have belonged to the priesthood) does the precedent seem to favor the notion that clerical delinquencies are not to be reproved by the laity. Neither does it convey the impression of the gen- eral purity of the priesthood, at that period. The prophet, in the name of the Lord, proceeds, still farther, to reprove them, and adds— " Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law. Have we not all one Father 1 Hath not one God created us ? Why do we deal treacherously every one against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers V — v. 9-10. "And I will come near you to judgment, and will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adul- terers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his v/ages, the widow and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his sight, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts." — Chap. iii. 5. " For behold the day cometh that burneth like an oven, and all the proud, [the aristocratic] yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be as stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them up, that it shall leave ihem neither root nor branch." — Chap. iv. 1. The last words of this prophecy, and the last of the Old Testament, uttered above four hundred years before the coming of the Savior, are emphatic and solemn. " Remember ye the law of Moses, my servant, which I commanded him in Horcb, with the statutes and judgments. Behold I send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of thefathers to the children, and the heart DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 277 of the children to the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." ** The Ixw of Moses, with the statutes" (the common law) "the judgments" (the judiciary) with the democratic institutions wrapped up in them, were all unrepealed. The subversion of the commonwealth, the long succession of kings, the captivity, the restoration, had not annulled them, and there they stood, and should stand, obeyed or disobeyed, through the long lapse of generations, with- out the voice of prophecy, to the coming of John the Bap- tist and the Messiah. Then, if not sooner, the holy brotherhood, the family unity and fraternal sympathy of man with man should begin to be restored. Were it oth- erwise, the earth itself would be smitten with a curse! The tone of these closing prophecies conveys the im- pression that the reformation in the times of Ezra and Nehemiali must have been either superficial in its char- acter, limited in extent, or brief in duration — the too com- mon description, alas ! of both religious and political re- formations in our world, hitherto. If, as is commonlj'- supposed, the prophet Zechariah is the person alluded to by our Savior as having been slain "between the temple and the altar," the corruption of the nation or of a leading portion of it, must have made rapid and fearful strides. And yet the reality and importance of the reformation are not to be denied, nor its influence undervalued. In all great public reformations, political or religious, only a small portion of the people have been efTectually and per- manently reformed. The masses have soon relapsed, and in many instances, ripened for utter destruction. The scenes of the Pentecost did not save the Jewish nation, nor prevent the impending destruction of Jerusalem. But the beneficial effects of such reformations are never lost ; they are perpetuated, to the end of time ! The Pentecost was an essential link in the chain of events that sent Christianity to the ends of the earth, preserving it to the present day, and to all coming ag€S. Just so the 13 278 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. reformation in the times of Zerubbabel and Joshua, Ezra and Nehemiah, constituted an essential means for consol- idating the remnant of Judah, and preserving for four hundred years among them, to some extent, the knowl- edge and worship of the true God, the recognized com- mon brotherhood and equality of man. Without this, the way would not have been prepared for the appearance of John the Baptist and the Messiah. There v/ould have been no community in a position to enter into the spirit of their mission, or to appreciate their teachmgs. With- out that reformation, there had been no Pentecost, no dif- fusion among the nations of such a religion as that of Je- sus, nor of the spirit of universal brotherhood which it breathes and inculcates. Our Saxon and Anglo-Saxon nations, for aught we know, might have been worship- pers of Woden and Thor, or have only exchanged them for the gods of the Greeks and Eomans. To profit by the study of history we must notice the succession and connexion of moral cause and effect, and recognize the Providence of God in the arrangement and disposition of them. In guiding the remnant of Judah that went up from Babylon, God had His eye, among other things, to the ultimate establishment of democratic institutions, in all the earth. And the discipline the Jews were placed under in Baby- lon, had much to do with the reformation of the restored remnant at Jerusalem. God had permitted their captivi- ty as a punishment of their prevalent sins : hero wor- ship, king worship, image worship, and the oppressions and violations of common brotherhood and fraternity that were naturally connected with them. Their ancestors had rebelled against Jehovah in abjuring the common- wealth, and desiring a king. Under their own kings thev had suffered long for their folly. Under the kings of Babylon they had suffered still farther, and they had seen somewhat of the connexion between image-worship — an- other of their besetting sins — with this oppressive auto- DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 279 cratic power. How precious to such of them as had the spirit of hurnanity and piety remaining in them, must have been the restored worship of their Common Father, and the restored usages and privileges of the Mosaic commonwealth! It was like a second exodus out of Egypt. The tendency and to a great extent the effect was to asso- ciate in their own minds the abominations of heathenism and its image-worship with the despotism from which, in a good degree, they had escaped — though as tributaries to the distant Persian monarch, the rod was suspend- ed over them stilJ, and they felt some of its stings. One permanent eflcct of the captivity and of the; subse- quent reformation may be specified. However superficial, however limited, however transient, in some respects, may have been ihat reformation, it divorced them as a people, thenceforward and perpetually, even down to the present day, f om the image-worship to which until the captivity in Babylon they had been so insanely inclined. Whatever else may be charged upon the Jews from the time of Ne- hemiah to the lime of Christ, and from the dawn of the Christian era to the present hour, there is one charge from which they must be exempted. The worship of images or of a plurality of gods has not been among their national crimes. Theoretically, at least, they have constantly affirmed and maintained the existence of one only living and true God. On this radical point of theology they have been and they still are God's witnesses in the most idolatrous nations whither they have been scattered, and in the darkest times, even when all the nations called Christian have been over-run with image-worship and the superstitious vener- ation of saints. Were it only that they might be qualified for this important service, the discipline of the captivity, the reproofs of Ezekiel, and the reformatory efforts of Ezra, Nchemiuh, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, with the previous labors of Zerubbabel and Joshua, were not bestowed upon the little remnant of Judah in vain. This fact of the permanent div(ircc of the Jews, at this 280 DEMOCRACY OF CHRlSTlANlTr. period, from the worship of images, has been commonly noticed, though the philosophy of the process that pro- duced the effect has been little pondered. And another important fact intimately connected with it, has perhaps wholly escaped observation. The connexion between image worship, king worship, and hero worship, already insisted on, if it be founded in nature and in fact, should lead us to anticipate a decline of either one or two of them when the other was displaced, if image worship was destroyed, the warship of kings and chieftains would proportionately abate. This effect of our Protestant Re- formation is too palpable to be overlooked. The same thing begins to be witnessed at the Sandwich islands, as it has been wherever a religion hostile to the use of ima- ges has been introduced, and an instinctive sagacious foresight of this is one grand reason why such a religion is commonly opposed by the conservatists of autocratic power. Mohammedanism may seem to furnish an excep- tion, but that religion has attractives for sensualists pe- culiarly its own ; its founder, a military chieftain, is al- most reverenced as a god, and the absence of idolatry may be rather a seeming fact than a real one. If images were displaced by Mohammed, can it be said that the worship of the common Father of all men was restored 1 After ail, it remains to be seen whether the theism of Moham- med, even as it is, has not introduced an element adverse to the extreme of autocratic power. Do the iMohamme- dan monarchs ^eign as absolutely and as securely as oth- er eastern kings ? Remote tendencies, amid counteract- ing causes are not developed in a day. The general facts indicate the principles involved. Our theory, if it be cor- rect, would lead us to expect of the remnant of Judah, di- vorced from the worship of images, that they would less tenaciously cherish the admiration of heroes and the de- sire of kings. The feeling might not be entirely eradica- ted, as the displacing of a branch or even the trunk might not at once destroy the root. To this theory the facts DEMOCRACY OF ClIIUSTIANTV. 281 of the case seem to conform. The inspired Record tells lis of no repetition of the revolt witnessed in the times of Samuel — of no clamorous repudiation of the common- wealth, for the sake of having a gorgeous king. Their own kinsfs and those of the Chaldeans and Persians — like the feast of quails their fathers lusted after — produced a surfeit, and sufTiced them, at least for a season, and during the period covered by the Old Testament history, nearly one hundred years. Whether any counter-indications of it may have appeared iti later times, we leave for consid- eration in the proper place. CHAPTER XXL OF THE HEBREW PROPHECIES BEFORE THE ASSYRIAN AND CHAL- DEAN CONQUESTS, AND IN REFERENCE TO THOSE EVENTS. An examination of the Hebrew prophets, as was proposed, may afford us some additional light on the moral and political history of Israel and Judah, of which we have already been tracing a few outlines. The moral causes of the overthrow of those kingdoms — the particular sins on account of which God gave them up into the hands of their enemies — will constitute an important branch of the inquiry. And if it shall appear that their violations of the fundamental principles of democratic equality, their disregard of human rights, their contempt and disuse of the judicial arrangements God instituted for the pro- tection of the wronged, together with the servility of the peo- ple, the despotism of their rulers, and the unrestrained oppres- sion of tli' poorer classes by the wealthier, were among the prominent causes of their overthrow, the chief provocations on account of which God withdrew from them His protection and favor, then we shall claim that the purposes of God, His provi- 282 DEMOGRAOY OF OIIRISTIANITT. dential arrangements, and the laws of moral cause and effect by •which He governs the nations, bear testimony to I lis re- gard for the fundamental principles of democrac}^ and His hatred of whatever is in opposition to them — that this, at least, is the testimony of the Hebrew Scriptures, and that the Jehovah they recognize is thus characterized in their pages. The historians already cited have left on record some few testimonies on this point which we have noticed, and the gen- eral scope of the history looks in the same direction. B ut we are to inquire now of the inspired prophets who were raised up for the very purpose of warning the people and their rulers before- hand, and while the moral causes of the final result were in progress, showing them the consequences of their course if per- sisted in, and predicting the very results which afterwards took place. "We shall have to do chiefly with the prophets who wrote before the Babylonian captivity, yet some who came af- terwards have alluded so directly to the topic of our inquiry, and their testimony is so explicit, that a citation of them will be equally in point. Zeoiiariatt, who wrote after the return of the captives to Jera- salem, and whose testimony in another direction has already been quoted, has a most remarkable paragraph direct to the point of our present inquir}^ Addressing himself to the remnant of Judah then restored to their own land, he bids them recall the admo- nitions of the " former prophets," and mark how the refusal of their fathers to heed them procured the calamities they had suffered. " Should ye not hear the words which the Lord hath cried by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and the cities thereof round about her, when men inhabited the south and the plain ? And the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah, saying, * * Execute true judg- ment^ and show mercy and compassion every man to his bro- ther: and oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stran- ger, nor the poor, and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart. But they refused to hearken, and pull- ed away the shoulder, and stopped their ears that they should not hear. Yea, they made their heart as an adamant-stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the Lord DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 283 of hosts hath sent in His spirit by the former prophets ; there- fore came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts. Therefore it is come to pass, that as He cried, and they would not hear, so they cried, and I would not hear, saitli the Lord of hosts; but 1 scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations whom they knew not; thus the land was desolate after them, that no man passed through nor returned ; for they laid the pleasant land desolate." — Zech. vii. 7-14. We will next ascertain the grounds on which Zechariah made these statements concerning " the words wdiich the Lord had cried by the former prophets." Isaiah flourished and prophesied during the reigns of " Uzzi- ah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah." All these except Ahaz are reckoned among the good kings of Judah, and Hezekiah among the best of them ; yet the language of Isaiah during, some portions of this period is very remarkable, and conveys to us vivid pictures of a nation exceedingly corrupt and on the very verge of destruction. The first chapter may be taken as a specimen. " It may be considered," says Scott, " as an introduction prefixed to the subsequent prophecies. It is thought that this was not Isaiah's first vision, though placed as an introduction to the rest." Some commentators have dated this chapter in the beginning of the reign of Ahaz, or at the close of Jotham's reign. " Hear, O heavens, and giv^e ear earth, for the Lord hath spoken. I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib, but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. Ah ! sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil doers, children that are corrupters! they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. Why should ye be stricken any more ? Ye will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises, and putrifying sores; they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment." — Isa. i. 2-6. In what portion of Scripture, it might be asked, can we find a more glowing picture of degeneracy and moral corruption ? Even to this day, the preacher who has occasion to describe 284 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. the depths of human depravity, makes free use of the express- ions just cited— nay, the theological proof-texts on that topic will commonly be found to include the closing sentence above quo- ted. The prophet, or rather the spirit of prophecy speaking by him, must have had in mind some of the most signal speci- mens of flagrant wickedness. But listen, further, and notice the terrible denunciations with which this picture is followed. Either in description of the desolations even then clusterino- around him, or were probably, in prophetic vision of scenes yet future, but in the bold style of prophetic poetry announced as already present, the bard exclaims : "Your country? Desolate! Your cities? Burned with fire ! Your land ? Strangers have devoured it, in your pres- ence, and desolate, as overthrown by strangers.* And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a beseiged city. Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom and we should have been like unto Gomorrah." — V. 7-9. Ten righteous persons would have saved those devoted cities, and Isaiah intimates that a " very small remnant " of righteous persons had preserved Judah and Jerusalem from a similar or equally terrible overthrow. " From the mention of Sodom and Gomorrah, the prophet took occasion, with a holy indignation, to address the rulers of Judah under the title of rulers of Sodom, and the citizens of Jerusalem as inhabitants of Gomorrah." — Scott. " Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear im to the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah! To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord. I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams and of the fat of fed beasts, and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before me, w^ho hath required this at your hands, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations, 'incense is an abomination unto me: the new moons, and sabbaths, and calling of asscmbhes I can not away Avith. It is iniquity, even the solemn meetino-. Your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hateth ; * From these gonfences we have dropped tho word •' j?,*' supplied rc- pealetlly by the irnnslalors, and iniiicaiinj,' ihe present len^c, but not f'ui nd in the oriiriiial. The forcible st\le of tl.e pretry and the Jlvict 3«eanin<'' ol the writer are belttr pre.-erved by llie omission. DEMOCRACY 01' CIlRISTIANirV* '286 tliey ^ire a trouble unto me ; I am ^veary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I Avill hide mine eyes from vou; yea, when ye make many prayers I will not hear." — v. 10-15. How deeply must Jehovah have been disgusted with His professed people, when He employed language like this — when He characterized them as equal in guilt to the rulei-s of Sodom and the people of Gomorah — when He spurned their religious devotions, and demanded what they could have to do in His temple. No mere incidental or venial offences could have given occa- sion for such language ; and it is evident that the delinquency did not consist in the neglect of the institutions of religion and the outward forms of devotion. In these they were abundant, even to the wearying of Jehovah himself. AVhat could their transgression have been— in what did their iniquity consist? Let us read on : " Your hands are full of blood. Wash yon, make you clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do v/e!l." — v. 15-17. Here wc begin to get some light upon the preceding para- graphs. The rulers and the people were charged with blood guiltiness. They were murderous in their characters, and in their doinos. A very serious charge to be brought against so reli- gious a community, so respectable a body of rulers. By what specifications could so heavy a charge be sustained ? A few words further from the prophet will inform us. " Seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the father- less, plead for the widow. Come now and let us reason to- gether, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet they Siall be white as snow, thougti they be red like crimson they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured Avith the sword, for the mouth of the Lord hath spo- ken it."— r. 17-20. The national judiciary, as appointed by Moses, had fallen into disuse, or had become perverted, so that the ends of public justice were not reached. Either the people, under the mon- archy, had suffered the appointing power to pass out of their 13* 286 DEMOCRACY OF dURlStlANITT. hands into tliose of the king or his court, or they had elected unjust judges, or those appointed by the king or his court Avere unsuitable persons. In the community were men of in- fluence, of capita], of power, who took advantage of the poor or of those dependant on them to oppress and defraud them; and they found no redress. Perhaps there were robberies, thefts, murders, riots, and acts of violence which were not pun- ished or restrained. The rulers were either remiss or wield^ ed their powers on the side of the oppressor. The mass of the people were indifferent spectators, neglecting to remonstrate against this injustice, and permitting their rulers to abuse their high trust, yet yielding to them their vohmtary homage and support. They were therefore like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, one of whose crying sins was that they " did not strengthen the hands of the poor and needy.'^ They did not " seek judgment" They did not provide for the execu- tion of justice between man and man. They did not " reheve the oppressed;" they did not "judge the fatherless;" nor " plead for the widow." And therefore God loathed all their religious services, declarino- that their hands were full of blood. At the same time He declared that if they would cleanse themselves from these iniquities, if they would discharge these important duties, their sins sliould be forgiven and they should be restored to the divine favor. If obedient to this message^ they should be preserved in the land, and enjoy its fruits, if rebellious, they should be devoured with the sword. All this lies on the face of these paragraphs taken in con- nexion with the history. And it implies that the people were held responsible for the political and judicial character of the government they lived under and sustained ! God looked to them, and would hold them accountable for the neglect or for the mal-adrainistration of their rulers. And the neglect to provide and administer a just government, a righteous judi- ciary, was among the most heinous sins of which the commu- nity could be guilty. If this be not the meaning, what intelli- gible construction can be put upon the passage? The least that can be said is that the people were held guilty for not BEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIAN'ITV. 28? remonstrating against tliis injustice, and for not seettng by all lawful means in their power, to restore and mamtam the ad- ministration of justice. And this includes the sentunent that God regards with marked abhorrence the violation of inalien- able human rights. The construction we have put upon the languag-e of the prophet, is fortified by a still further quotation "How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of iudome t, ri..-hteousness lodged in it, but now murderers. ThvXr las become dross: thy wine mi.ed with water. T i p in es are rebellious and companions of thieves; every one loveth o-itts, and followcth after rewards, they judge not the fathe le'^s; neither doth the cause of the widow come unto t em Therefore thus saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the • w , One of Israel Ah! I will ease me of my adversaries nuohty One of ^^ '^^J f '^^^^i^^, A„d 1 will turn my hand and aveno^e me oi mine ciit^un^^- -^ - . , i unonthce° and will purely purge away thy dross, and take awavaUthy tin. And I will restore thy jud-^es as at the fusfandZ counsellors as at the beginning; afterward thou .halt be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city, aon shall be redeemed with judgment and her converts with rio-hteousness."— 0. 21-27. The political and judicial nature of the oflences reproved are here placed beyond question. The rulers are charged with bribery and companionship with the criminals they ought to have punished, the wealthy oppressors and extortioners who ground the faces of the poor. The fatherless, or those who had none to stand up for their rights, found no protection from their courts of justice, and the widow, who had - nch gifts to bestow, could obtain no favorable hearing before them. The law, as administered by them, was but a weapon in the hands of the rich, but was too expensive an instrument tob^neh the poor Alas! How many civilized communities, and ,ealous L the Jews were, in their religious observances must plead guilty U> the same charges! Vet notwithstauding the sub- version of the commonwealth, and the consequent assumption of political power by the monarchy, ages before /,. pcopU were still held responsible for those abuses which they tacitly consented, and should be severely pun.slied on account of them Then, after this purifying process, the judiciary shoiUd 288 DK.»10CUACY OF CHRISTIANITV, be restored " at the first" and iudo-es as " at tlie beo-iimino-'' (in the times of the Mosaic commonwealth) and Jerusalem should become the city of Righteousness. A manifest pre- diction of the captivity in Babylon and of the restoration and reformation that succeeded it. The proceedings of Xehemiah and of the popular assembly, against Avealthy and princely op- pressors, constituted a signal fulfilment of the closing predic- tion. We are not to infer that these violations of the principle of democracy were the only sins of which the rulers and people of Judah were guilty at this period. The very next chapter contains reproofs of their idolatrous and image worship, in connexion with the manifestations of aristocracy or " haughti- ness of men." The closing part of the first chapter, indeed, introduces this train of thought. The " destruction of the transgressors" on the invasion of the Chaldeans, and the conquest of Judea and Jerusalem, would make the people '' ashamed of the oaks they they had desired, and confounded for the gardens they had chosen." This language might refer to their delight in the groves or gardens of their idolatrous worship, or to their almost adoring confidence and trust in their oppressive kings under whose shadow they vainly expected security. The two ideas are so nearly related that one form of expression might suffice for them both. In the second chapter, which opens with a vie?v of the better times of the Messiah, it is predicted that "the lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day." After graphic and highly poetic descriptions of the principal objects, emblems, and instruments ©f autocratic ambition and power, declaring that " the day of the Lord shall be upon them" to bring them low — '' upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan" — high mountains, and towers, and fenced walis, and ships of Tarshish, and exquisite specimens of luxurv and art, the sentence above quoted is again repeated. Then follows this declaration: ** And the idols he shall utterly abolish." IZXOCliCY OF CHilSTLLNlTT- 28S Ther shaii -go inio ihe h !es of ihe rods, and into cares of the earth.*' Tbej shall be ca« " to ihe wfAes acd lo the bats*'-*" for the fear of the Lord. 2nd fcr ihe gicry (K Hb majestr/' The chapter clones wiih — -" Ceas^ ve firom ««i whose breaih is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accoimt- ed of?*' Thus are ideniined the ciwiin^ alwiitioo of idoiatr; and of the han^hsiness oi men — A imige worship aad of aris- tocracT of the id.-Is and of the emblems and imj^emeiiLE :i a:ii.;"Crauc swav. So that, while the pr>phet did ii^Dt overlook or forget or jut- dente the aboodnaiioiis of iaiage worshq) in Jerusakm and Jvdah, at the tone in wkidi he wrc4e, he jwoceeded with seru- pidous propiieij- and phiksophieal accoracv as well as poetic taste, when he olaced the conneeied 335 of opptesaoo, serril- itr, inhamaniiy, and ki^ worship in the foreground of ihe picture, in the opening of his messages, in ihe introdcctim to he prophecies, iniroducing image worship afterwards as apart of the draperr of the picture he intiuided to prsent. The third chapter opens with predit^cns of the calamities ooM^ upon Jadah and JenEafem— the oppressions die people vcre to smS^ &«n one another, for the want C. Rome became a republic 509 years B. C. Zoroastres appeared before the court of Persia 492 B. C. Heroditus was born 484 B. C. Plato v/as born 428 years B. C. Socrates was put to death, at Athens, 399 B. C. Homer was born 900 B. C. The seige of Troy commenced 1183 B, C, as is gen- erally supposed, though some accounts make it much ear- lier. The Old Testament history terminates with the close of the book of Nehemiah, 431 B. C. Malachi, the last of the prophets, is supposed to have written 397 B. C. These few dates will serve to convey some impression of the remote antiquity- of the period we have been con- sidering. A glance at a map of the renowned nations of antiquity, exhibiting Palestine in the very midst of them, will show how necessarily the events we have been con- sidering must have been known, more or less, to all those nations. Add to this the very remarkable connexion of the Hebrew history with the history of all those nations, and the chain of the communication will appear still more clearly. The successive conquests of Judea by almost all those nations, either during or after the Old Testsment period, and especially the emigration or dispersion of the Jews into all those countries, must have ensured among the learned, a general knowledge of the Hebrew religion and institutions throughout the then civilized world. Under direction of Ptolomy Philadelphus the Hebrew laws were translated into the Greek tongue 277 years B. C, but must have been known among the learned much earlier. Plato is supposed to have been acquainted with the Hebrew Scriptures, and Zoroastres appears to have known some thingof the laws of Moses. DEMOCllACY Of tjElKiSTlA S'iTVT. 325 CHAPTER XXIil. OF JEWISH HISTORY FROM THE CLOSE OF THE OLD TO THE COBIMENCEMENT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT RECORDS. Of this period, comprising about four centuries, the records of the Jewish nation are but scant}^ and in some respects in- distinct and uncertain. The moral characteristics and pohtical condition of the people, during some portions of this period, can be but imperfectly ascertained. The books of the Apocrypha, in some measure fabulous, the history of Josephus, and the his- tories of the surrounding nations supply us with the only ori- ginal data on which we can rely. Dean Prideaux, in his " Con- nexions" has selected, perhaps, the most important particulars, and some other writers have furnished condensed statements of the principal facts of this portion of history. We glean, hastily, a few items, the only ones now within our reach, that seem to bear upon the subject of our present investigations. Alexander of Macedon, by his conquest of Persia, became master of Judea, ^vhich was then a province of that empire. He " granted to the Jews the freedom of their country, laws, and religion." At his death, 324 years B. C, his dominions were divided, and Judea fell to the share of Ptolemy, along with Egypt, L}'bia, Arabia and Coele-Syria. As the seat of his o-overnment was Egypt, Judea became a province of that kingdom, in whic;li, so many centuries previous, the Hebrews had been held in bondage. But as this division of the empire was effected by a struggle between the rival aspirants, and as the Jews did not submit to Ptolemy without attempting a de- fence, they were treated with rigor, and not a few of them were carried captive into Egypt, and reduced to bondage. Thenceforward Judea was contested ground between Egypt and Syria, and for a long time it was under the dominion of the Syrian kings. The Jews appear to have exercised their religion, under a succession of high priests ui.til the perscca- tion of xVntiochus Epiphanes, about l70 years before Chi^at, 15 326 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTiANITr, when he caused the sacrifices to cease, and " there scarcely remained any signs of their peculiar civil or religious polity * These persecutions roused the Jews to revolt, and they suc- ceeded, under the generalship of J idas Maccabeas, in driving the Syrians from the country, 166 years B. C. Antiochus lost his life in this contest, and in a battle with one of his suc- cessors, Judas also was killed, and was succeeded by his broth- er Jonathan, 153 years B, C, This laid the foundation of a marked revolution in the gov- emment of the Jews; in which its remaining democratic fea- tures were displaced bv those of a monarchical character. The brothers of Judas Maccabeas "changed the republican gov- ernment into a rigorous monarchy,"f " John Hyrcanus, son of Simon Maccabeas, uniting in his person the office of higli priest and generalissimo of the aniiy, subdued the enemies of his country, ceased to pay homage to the kings of Syria — 135 years B. C. He reigned 28 years. Ilis sous assumed the title, as well as the power of kings, and the high priesthood remained in his family, though not in the person of the mon- arch. His descendants are distinguished in the history of the Jewish nation, by the appellation of the Asmonean dynasty, which continued about 126 years/' But before the close of this period, Judea came under the power of the Romans. Pompey besieged and took Jerusalem, about 63 years B. C, After several revolutions, Herod the Great was declared king of Judea by a decree of the Roman senate, 37 years B. C. Such, in brief, are the outlines of the history. On a survey of it we cannot but remark a decline and a catastrophe analo- gous to that of the history terminating in the Babylonian cap- tivity. Commencing with the Mosaic commonwealth, as it was left by Joshua, we found a general decline of the spirit of lib- erty and of habits of virtue, down to the subversion of the commonwealth; then through the successive reio-ns of the kings, to the Chaldean in\asion. In like manner, from the imperfect restoration of the commonwealth under Ezra and Robbini' Outlines, p, 111. t Robbins' Outlines, [). 125. DEMOCEACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 327 Nehemiab, we notice a corresponding decline, until the sub- version of the republican government by a monarcliy under the Maccabees; and then a further decline until the period of Herod. The partial and limited reformation, under Hezekiah and Josiah, could not avert the Chaldean conquest. Nor did the preaching of John the Baptist, of Jesus, and his apostles, reform the rulers or the mass of the nation, or avert the de- struction of Jerusalem. The decline of true religion, and the decline of the spirit of liberty and the usages of democracy, in both cases, went hand in hand. As the spirit of religion and the institutions of democracy did not attain the same degrees of ascendancy under Ezra and Nehemiah that they did under Moses and Joshua, so a shorter period of time served to cor- rupt and displace them, and a deeper degradation and a more dreadful and permanent retribution and overthrow were thus speedily reached. A degree of prosperity was enjoyed under the sovereigns of Persia, even after the times of Cyrus, and under Alexander the Great. But from the time of his death, the judgments predicted by the later prophets began to be experienced. Dependant as the Jews were upon foreign governments, during the greater part of this period (from Nehemiah to the times of Christ) they maintained, nevertheless, for the most part, a local government of their own, and that government corresponded in its general character and its distinctive fea- tures, with the prevailing religion of the times. One marked indication of religious declension and of a de- parture from the institutions of IMoses, was the secular power connected with the high priesthood, and the strife of rival as- pirants for that office, some of whom cared little or nothing for the religious worship connected with it, but only for the honors and the emoluments of civil office. This fact is noticed by Dean Prideaux in respect to Menelaus who supplanted his brother Jason and got into the priesthood by outbidding him at the court of their heathen king, Antiochus Epiphanos, 172 years B. C. Jason himself had previously bought the high priesthood of Antiochus, supplanted his brother Onias, and in- 328 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. trocluced idolatrous observances into the worship at the temple. In this connection the historian add& — " For at that time, and for some ages past, the high priest of the Jews, had, first un- der the Persian, and afterwards under the Macedonian kino-s, the sole temporal government of the nation. This last most certainly was derived from the king, and this gave him the handle to dispose of both, though the priesthood itself was only derived from that divine authority under which it acted." — Prideaux, vol ii. p. 111. This arrangement, as Dean Prideaux very innocently ob- serves, was much the same as is now witnessed in our modern Christian states! He might have added, perhaps, that this il- lustrious and pious example of the heathen kings, supplied the earliest precedent for modern church and state unions that appears on the Hebrew records, unless some faint appearances of it mioht be detected under the kino-s of Israel or Judah be- fore the Chaldean invasion. In either case, the innovation was without a divine sanction, and its corrupting influence and disastrous eff'ects among the Jews are manifest and undeniable. By the prophet Jeremiah, as before cited, God complained of the false prophets for favoring the assumed authority of the priests, in matters never committed to them, (Jer. v. 31,) and the demand was urged — " What will ye do in the end there- of " ? i. e. What must be the result of such a course of con- duct ? The se quel of the J ewish history may furnish the answer. Josephus informs that Jonathan, the brother and successor of Judas Maccabeas, was "ordained high priest of the Jews" by Alexander, the son and successor of Antiochus Epiphanes. (Antiq. Book xiii. Chap, ii.) From the same authority we learn that on the death , of Jonathan " the Jez^^^ made Simon Maccabeas their general and high priest." At this period the Jews aspired to manage their affairs independently of foreign control ; and all along the previous history the people appear to have had some voice in the transaction of public business, imder their high priests. After the death of Simon and the accession of his son John Hyrcanus to the high priesthood, a league was made or rather renewed, with the Romans, through DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANirV. 329 an embassage sent by Hyrcanus. The documents of the Ro- man senate, on this occasion, as copied by Josephus, recognize the ambassadors as having been sent by " the people of the Jews," and tlie league of friendship was with " these good men, who were sent by a good and friendly people'^ — all which marks the popular element in the Jewish government at that time, at least in theory, an evident relic of the ancient Mosaic commonwealth, though now lying in fragmentary ruins. But even these remains of democratic freedom were about to be displaced by the ascendancy of autocratic power. The military successes of the Maccabees, in throwing off the yoke of foreign dominion for a brief period, resulted in the deeper degradation of the Jewish people, in the end. Not content with acting on the defensive, these commanders push- ed their arms into the neighboring provinces, " infested Syria with great wars," took Samaria, and utterly demolished it, made war upon Ptolemy of Egypt, overthrew Gaza, took She- chem, destroyed the temple on Mount Gerizim, and conquered Iturea, Idumea, Gidead, and Moab. How much the splendor of these military exploits dazzled the Jewish people and blinded their eyes to the danger of permitting so much power in the hands of their sacerdotal generals, it is difficult to determine. They were presented with the sad alternative of exposure to foreign domination on the one hand, or of utter subjugation by their own native princes and apparent deliverers on the other. The latter horn of the dilemma, whether by their own selec- tion or otherwise, appears to have been, for a season, their des- tiny ! The valor of Judas Maccabeas and the statesmanship, wisdom, and goodness of John Hyrcanus have been celebrated by historians, but their measures laid the foundation for the subversion of the remains of Jewish liberty. "After the death of John Hyrcanus "his son Aristobulus, as being eldest, succeeded his father, both ia the office of high piiest, and also in that of supreme governor of the country, and as soon as he Avas settled in them, he put the diadem on his head, and assumed the title of king, and he was the first that did so in that land, since the Babylonish captivity." — Pri- deaux, il. 241. 330 DEMOORAOY OF CHRISTIANITY. This was 107 years B. C. The reign of Aristobulus was marked hy many atrocities. He starved his own mother to death in a dungeon, and treacherously assassinated his brother Antigonus. Thenceforward the government of Judea, under a succession kings of the Asmonean dj-nasty was, for the most part, an un- mitigated despotism, so long as the sovereign power remained in their hands, and (under sufferance of the Romans) quite down to the times of Herod. This period has been designa- ted by historians as " the profane and tyrannical Jewish mon- archy, first of the Asmoneans or Maccabees, and then of Herod the Great, the Idumean, till the coming of the Messiah." (See Note to Josephus,by Whiston.) Hear also Strabo's testimony on this occasion — b. xvi. pp. '761-772 — " Those,'* says he, "that succeeded Moses, continued for some time in earnest, both in righteous actions and in piety, Vut after a while there were others that took upon them the high priesthood ; at first su- perstitious, and afterwards tyrannical persons. * * And when it openly appeared that the government was become ty- rannical, Alexander was the first that set liimself up for a king instead of a priest ; and his sons were Hyrcanus and Astrobu- tus." "All in agreement," says Whiston, "with Josephus except this, that Strabo omits ihQ first king Astrobolus who reigned but a single year, and seems hardly to have come to his knowl- edge." It is easy to see that after the remaining democratic usages and liberties of the Jewish people had been subverted under a dynasty of Jewish kings they would not be likely to be re- stored or respected under the reign of foreign conquerors who cared nothing for their polity or their religion. So that if the Jews gained any thing, for a time, b}^ the deliverances from foreign control achieved for them by the Maccabees, it was at the expense of civil liberty, and they lost whatever advantages they had gained when they fell under the government of Herod; and without regaining the civil liberties of which the family of their heroic protectors had deprived them, by the DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 331 concentratuui, within and among themselves, of all the powers of the nation, ecclesiastical, militaiy, and civil, in utter con- tempt of the usages of the ancient commonwealtli, and the in- stitutions of Moses, which knew of no such divorce of civil gov- ernment or of military power from the people — no such cen- tralized powers, either military, ecclesiastical or civil — no sucli union of those powers as was witnessed under the Asmonean kings. The mischief, let it be distinctl}^ understood, did not he nor originate in the mere fact that the same person who held the high priesthood happened to hold likewise the chief magistra- cy of the state, if designated, either by God, or by the people, to do so, for the time being — but it did lie in the facts that the office of the high priesthood was understood to confer, to se- cure, or to include, within and of itself, ex officio, the supreme civil power — that the chief magistracy was understood to in- clude or to confer the priestly prerogative, or . that the chief magistrate controlled the appointment of high priest, or that the priesthood and the chief magistracy were held as the mo- nopoly of a favored family, without any such appointment by God ; and without any periodical election by the people, and was therefore an assumed, an usurped power, its foundations laid in inequality, injustice, and arrogancy in the beginning- It is one thing for the priest to be eligible to civil office, by ap- pointment of God, or by vote of the people, from time to time ; quite another thing for the priesthood to claim civil office with- out leave obtained either of God or man. It is one thing for a civil magistrate, in the exercise of his essential rights, as a man, or as a true worshipper, to communicate to his fellow men religious instruction, or take a part in public acts of devo- tion ; it is quite another thing for civil rulers, as such, to claim the forcible control of the nation's religion, the exclusive power of appointing religious teachers, and the support of them out of the national purse. How skilfully and minutely the ecclesiastical polity of the Asmonean kings had adjusted itself, during that brief period, to the spirit of the government, it were useless to inquire. Of 332 DEMOCRACY OF CHRTSTIANITY. one thing we may be assured. If those who are searching aft^r JcAvish precedents for Christian hierarchies and church establish- ments, are to find them anywhere, on the page of Jewish his- tory, they must search for them in tlie Asmonean records, or in the archives of the heathen monarchs of Judea. An earher date for them, they will find it difficult to authenticate, unless, as was hinted before, they claim the example of king Ahab. Another remark is in place, here. The prophetic warnings of Samuel, on the accession of Saul, the first king of the He- brews, lose none of their pith, and point, and power, by being- brought down through the lapse of ages, and read in the light of what Josephus records concerning the kings of the Asmo- nean dynasty, and the succeeding reign of Herod. That ter- rible prediction of Malachi — " For behold the day cometh that shall burn as an oven" — has been referred by some commen- tators to this period — b}^ others to the destruction of Jerusa- lem, which happened soon after. Very naturally might the- description be applied to them both, as being but different. acts in the same retributive drama. CHAPTER XXIY. - * THE CULMINATION AND THE CATASTROPHE. If the Jews were not cured, by this time, of their hero wor- ship and their king worship, as well as their image worship, it was not because tlie lessons divine Providence had prepared for them, were not well adapted to this end, and as weighty and as significant as any people could be expected to go through with, and survive. One incident related by Josephus conveys the impression that the lesson was not wholly in vain — that it was learned as well as any other moral or religious lesson could be or was learned, by a generation so superstitious DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 333 and super ficial, so lij^pocritical and formal, as the Je\yisli reli- gionists, under their preletical and autocratic church and state union, had now become. The stor}^, as told by Josephus, runs thus : " But now Pilate, the procurator of Judea, removed the ar- my from Ccesaria to Jerusalem, to take winter quarters there, in order to abolish the Jewish laws. So he introduced Ctesar's effigies, which were upon the ensigns, and brought them into the city, v.hereas our law forbids the ver}'- making of imao-es, on which account the former procurators were wont to make their entry into the city with such ensigns as had not those ornaments. Pilate was the first who brought those imao-es to Jerusalem and set them up there, which was done without the knowledge of the people, because it was done in the nio-ht time; but as soon as they knew it, they came in multitudes to Csesaria and interceded with Pilate many days that he would remove the images, and when he would not grant their re- quests, because this would tend to the injury of Coesar, while they yet persevered in their request on the sixth day, he or- dered his soldiers to have their weapons privatel}^ while he came and sat upon the judgment seat; which seat was so pre- pared, in the open place of the city, that it concealed the army that lay ready to oppress them, and vrhen the Jews petitioned him again he gave a signal to the sold ers to encompass them round, and threatened that their punishment should be no less than immediate death, unless they would leave off disturbino- him and go their ways home. But they threw themselves upon the ground, and laid their necks bare, and said they 'would take their death very willingly, rather than the wisdom of their laws should be transgressed; upon which Pilate was deeply affected with their firm resolution to keep their laws in- violable, and presently commanded the images to be carried back from Jerusalem to Cccsaria." — Jlniiq. Book xviii. Chap. iii. This was that same Pilate who was persuaded to give sen- tence of condemnation against Jesus. It may be said (but can neither be proved nor disproved) that the religionists so zealous against these images were the same in person or in character with those who demanded that unjust sentence. It may be inferred that their scruples on this occasion, were hypo- critical or frivolous, superstitious *or factious, akin to the pre- tense of conscientiously hesitating to pay tribute to Ccesar while the coin containing his image and superscription was 15^ 334 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. passing current among them. All this might be granted, and yet the incident may afford some instruction upon the subject of our inquiries, nevertheless. It tells us that even down to the times of Augustus Caesar, the honor, the dignity, and the interests of the Roman emperors were understood, among their subordinate officials, to depend, not a httle, upon such a display of their effigies as should give them a rank among the heathen gods ; that it was equally well understood that the custom was in violation of the laws of the Hebrews, that it must be stealthily introduced, or violently enforced. Less au- gust sovereigns than the Caesars had claimed divine honors, down to the century preceding, even Antiochiis, (as Josephus relates.) having been denominated a god, though assassinated by order of Tyrphou. The scruples of the Jews on this occasion, whether conscien- tious or factioui} whether sincere or hypocritical, whether well founded or superstitious, bear testimony to the fact that, from some cause, a change in public sentiment had taken place among them, in respect both to the use of images and the ad- ulation of monarchs. At some points in the Hebrew histor}^ the people would have been forward to set up such images themselves, as a matter of compliment to the great emperor who ruled over them, and as an appendage (symbolic and sub- ordinate no doubt) to their worship of Jehovah. Thus did they with their golden calf in the wilderness. Thus did they when they took up the star of the god Remphan. Thus did the Samaritan emigrants from Assyria and Babylon, when they feared Jehovah and served their own gods ; and thus did the more modern Samaritans, if Josephus does them justice, even down to the times we are considering. How happened it that in Judea alone, such a remarkable change had taken place ? Had the seventy years' captivity in Babylon, the re- formation under Ezra and Nehemiah, nothing to do with this change ? Or is it unlikely that the iron yoke of their Asmo- nean kino-s and the still bloodier bondao-e under Herod should huve done something towards divorcing them, or a portion of them, from king worship and the idolatry of their effigies ? DEMOCRACY- OF ClIRISTIANTY. 335 Taken in connexion with the inspired histor^^, the law, and the prophecy which preceded this incident, can we well help recognizing the retributive providences that had, in some measure, and after some sort, divorced a portion of them from the insane and heathenish veneration of great men and the deified images of them, for which their progenitors had been distinguished 1 Be it so that they were quite as far as ever from appre- hending and cherishing the true idea of divine worship — be it so that the covetousness which is idolatry had taken full possession of their bosoms — -be it so that they were still sycophantic and servile, the fact of their divorce from image worship, and, to some extent, from king wor- ship, in the form cherished by their fathers, remains a historical fact, nevertheless, teaching us what God was doing for the moral benefit of that people j however stu- pidly and wickedly they overlooked the deep spiritual significancy of it, and contented themselves with a mere fragmentary and partial, perhaps temporary, reformation, and t/iai only in respect to the mere outward form. It is in this very way, under the providence of God, that human perverseness is gradually counteracted, and human pro- gress, in the lapse of successive ages, secured. The Pharisees may have been no better thnn the Sadducees, but it was well that through the former, the true doc- trines of the spiritual ^Yorid and of the resurrection of the dead were preserved. The Jews in the time\of Pilate may have been no better than those in the time of Zede- kiah. They may have been ripening for a more fearful destiny. But their divorce from image worship (super- stitious as t/ieij may have been in that very thing) may have saved coming generations from image worship, and this may have been an important step in human progress towards a spiritual worship of the Creator, and a downfall of the worship of the creature ; the restoration of man to his God and the consequent annihilation of autocratic power. .'^3'6 DENfOCRACy OF CHRrSTIAKlTr. It needed, however, the long predicted destruction of Jerusalem, the dispersion of the Jews, and the utter an- nihilation of the church and state arrangements they had maintained since the accession of their Asmonean dynas- ty, to extinguish, completely, their unreasonable hopes of deliverance and of independence under their own native' kings. Their prophecies concerning the Messiah, this lingering hero worship and king worship had led them to interpret in the literal and secular sense. As the compu- ted time of the Messiah drew near, these hopes were re- vived, and ambitious or restless men were disposed to raise a standard of revolt against the power of the Ro- mans. Theudas, and Judas cS Galilee, as mentioned by Gamaliel, (Acts v. 36-37) were among the number of these. This threw the Koman governors into an attitude of self-defence. The mission of Jesus of Nazareth was mis- understood : hence the slaughter of the children of Beth" lehem by Herod : hence also the charge against Jesus that he set himself up for a king : hence likewise the fear that if all men in Judea believed in the Messiah ship of Jesus, the Romans would come and take away both their place and nation : and hence, yet again, the actual move- ment by a portion of the Jewish people, who witnessed his miracles, to take him by force, and make him a king, an honor which, as they understood kingship, the Savior declined. The question of Pilate to Jesus, "Art thou a king, then V and his superscription over the cross — ''Je- sus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews," are evidences of the excitability of the public mind, on the subject, and the readiness of the Roman governor to satirize the ex- pectations of the Jews in that direction. The subsequent feuds, factions and seditions, at Jeru- salem, giving at once occasion and opportunity to theRo- mans to besiege and demolish that ill-fated city, appear to have grown out of rivalries and aspirations connected more or less direcdy with some vague expectations of a heroic deliverer from U^e foreign yoke. Such however DKIVIOC'RACY OF CHRISTIANITY. .'^37 were not the purposes of high Heaven in respect to thein. Having preferred, as Samuel affirmed, the protection of earthly monarchs to the protection of God, and having never fully and permanently corrected that capital error, they were left to reap its legitimate fruits. Having cru- cified the Lord of glory to propitiate the favor of- a hu- man potentate^ vociferating, " JVe have no king but Ccesar^^^ they were righteously given over into the hands of their chosen kings, and compelled to drink of the bloody cup of human kingship, to its last bitter dregs. That their course was inconsistent, unstable, and self-contradictory, that they sometimes spurned the effigies of the Roman emperors, at other times propitiated the imperial favor by rejecting their ovvni Messiah, and then, again, rose up in rebellion and sedition — is no more strange or unaccount- able than that conscience and passion should conflict with each other — that sycophancy and rashness should alter- nate — that servility should be the cradle of insurrection — that revolt against kings should tread rapidly upon the heels of king worship, and that the burning bramble should consume the cedar that had trusted in its shadow. Spec- ulate as we may, the historical facts are before us. God provided a democracy for the Hebrews. They spurned it, for the control of kings, and the first act of the drama ended in Babylon. By signal divine interpositions, the democracy was, in a measure, restored. Again, in the course of events, it was exchanged for the dominion of kings. The second act of the drama terminates in the destruction of Jerusalem, by kingly power. A kingly government the Jews would have, and by the oppression of kings the Jewish nation was destroyed. Here the Jew- ish history terminates, as did that of the ten tribes in As- syria, under a similar visitation, and for similar causes. With the ten tribes, the autocratic apostacy was com- plete, and the destruction was final. With the remnant of Judah, a leaven of the true religion and of the spirit of democracy were preserved : hence the restoration and the 338 DEr.lOCilACif OF CHRISTIANITY. second experimexit : hence, too, when the state was again wrecked and the temjDle destroyed, there was a preserva- tion from the oblivion and the utter annihilation of the ten tribes, who are no where to be found. Some founda- tion stones of religion and of democracy the scattered Jews were commissioned (in despite of their own obsti- nate unbelief) to preserve and to transmit, to all the com- ing generations of the civilized world. Especially by their Messiah and his disciples, were the seeds of spirit- ual worship and the spirit of equal common brotherhood to be borne to the ends of the earth. * One observation, obvious enough, but quite important, must not escape us, as we linger a moment at this point of survey. That ascendancy of the priesthood in civil matters, in Christ's time, that stands out so prominently in the New Testament history, had its origin, as the reader now understands, not in the institutions of Moses, not even in the usages of the kingdoms of Israel and Ju- dah before the Assyrian and Chaldean conquests. It must have grown up under the high priesthoods appoint- ed by the heathen kings of Judea after the restoration or under the sacerdotal sway of the Asmonean kings. The precise form it bore in the New Testament era, must have been of still later origin, must have been shaped after the native kings of Judea had beeil displaced by the Roman governors, perhaps during the reign of Herod, it was at the '^palace of the high priest" that the national council or Sanhedrim convened, when Jesus was arrested by them in the garden, and conducted thither. The priest- hood concentrated, substantiailj^, within itself, whatever of civile legislative, judicial, or executive power, pertain- ed to the Jews. T/iis power it was, too strong tor the peo- ple at large, as well as for the adherents of Jesus, that was all powerful on that memorable occasion. So high- ly esteemed was Jesas among the masses, that, by day- light, and in the temple, they adventured not to lay hands on him, lest they should themselves be stoned. So deli- DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 339 cate was the probiem of arresting him that it was only under the cover of night, " in the absence of the multi- tude," and by the basest arts of combined treachery and bribery, with the personal attendance in the garden, of "the chief priests, and captains of the temple and the elders," and also their armed " servants, and a band of soldiers, composing a great multitude," that the arrest could be accomplished, even in the subjugated condition of the people! The servile city rabble roused by the priesthood, at the trial, are not to be confounded with the mass of Judean yeomanrj- who had so rectntly conducted Jesus into the city with high honors. '' The common people heard him gladly." It is frequently said that the same multitude on one occasion shouted -'Hosanna!" on another occasion, soon after, cried " Crucify !" There is not the slightest foundation for the aspersion ! The country' inhabitants who escorted Jesus into the city must have returned to their rural avocations and their homes, long before these occurrences took place. Defective as they may have been in their religion, under their aristo- cratic teachers, they were not such monsters of wiclced- ness nor such specimens of insanity' as to conduct to their metropolis the Benefactor whose miracles of mercy as- tonished them, with shouts of " hosanna"! and then, tar- ry there a number of dajs, (which, by Luke's account, must have intervened,) for the purpose of demanding his crucifixion! Human nature, depraved as it is, supplies history with no instances of this kind. And the inspired Record warrants no such statement or conjecture, in this case. Jesus sufTered death under a relentless ecclesias- tical despotism, too strong for the people, controlling the civil power, and wielding, as such aristocracies common- ly do, the basest and most lawless portion of tiie })opu- lace, on fitting emergencies, as the less guilty instruments of their tyranny over the mass of the people. Of the same materials are mobs and standing armies usually com- posed, the feculum of human society, the most ready to 340 DEMOORAOY OF OHRISTIANlTy. glorify military heroes, to venerate priestly imposture, and sustain the divine right of kings. Right loyal to Ccesar were the Jewish priesthood and senate, and their attendant rabble, when he whom 'Uhe people wexe wexy attentive to hear," and who "stirred up the people," was to be crucified, for reproving their oppressions ! The ad- ditional aid of a " band of soldiers," under state pay, was also required when, on the way to the cross, "there fol- lowed him a great company ot people and of women which also bewailed and lamented him." Imagine now, for one moment, the democratic institu- tions of the Mosaic commonwealth, as he left them, to have been in full operation in Judea at this time— no cen- tral government distinct from the people—no military distinct from the citizens— no organized priesthood con- trolling, as a senate, the affairs of state : imagine the democmtic judiciary duly organized, independent of cen- tralized control, (ecclesiastical, military, or civil,; ima- gine the state of society and the tone of morals that could render such a civil government possible ; and what reason would there be to apprehend any such event as the cru- cifixion of Jesus ? Nay! Take the Jews as they were in Christ's time, only without their corrupt government, (if the supposition be allowable) and how could the result have been brought about, among a people whose " ah- smce" was even now necessary to the arrest 1 The entire "congregation" were to be the judges, under the law, in capital offences, and preaching to the people was not among the indictable crimes. Without a nobility to lead on their paid serviles, or to create such a class of commu- nity, is it likely that the people attentive to hear Jesus, n.nd in whose presence he could not be touched, could have been out-voted, overawed, or overborne 1 Would his friends have forsaken him and fled, but through fear of the grim despotism under which the people were bound down 1 Those who quote Jewish precedent for Christian hi or- DCAlOCRACY OF CHRISTIANlTV. 341 archies, church and state unions, and autocratic power should be pointed to the palace of Caiaphas, tlie Sanhe- drim there convened, and the interviews between the San- hedrim and Pilate. All the Jewish precedents available for them, culminated then and there. The Jewish nation was indeed responsible for the death of Jesus, just as it was responsible for the innocent blood shed in Jerusalem by king Manasseh, which the Lord would not pardon. On the people God had laid the re- sponsibility of providing an independent democratic judi- ciary, the responsibility of its just and equitable action, despite of all usurped priesthoods and Sanhedrims, with the mobs of sycophants that their serpentine and slimy course never fails to trail after them. The Savior was crucified in revenge for his reproofs of sacerdotal usurpation, of aristocratic oppression and pride.* His blood rested on the Jewish nation, because the peo- ple failed to rescue him from the rage of despots, in the use of the democratic institutions which God had provi- ded for such ends, and which it was their business to have preserved and administered. They crucified, pros- pectively, the Savior, in permitting such a murderous oligarchy to grow up annong them, and in recognizing, obsequiously, its usurped and unrighteous claims of pow- er. We say not that this was their only sin in respect to the Savior, but we do maintain that this was a promi- nent item in their guilt. The mass of the Jewish people did indeed reject their Messiah, and in so doing, rejected " the True God and Eternal Life." But w/iy, on what account, and from wdiat causes were they led to reject him 1 By what tempta- tions, under what influences, from the force of what habits of thinking, under what system of moral, reli- gious, and political instruction, education, and training, by the following of what maxims, and by whose exam- * Sci- ihe 23J chapter of INlatlhew, also the 19t!i chai.lcv of Luke, r 45-48. 342 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. pie were they blinded and hardened, seduced and de- stroyed 1 They rejected the ti^ue Messiah because their hearts were doating upon a false one, a temporal monarch a mere human king 1 Like their rebellious fathers, in the days of Samuel, they lusted after suck a king, that they might be "Jike al] the nations" round about them, and so they *' rejected Jehovah that He should not reign over them." They were clamorous enough to make Jesus their king, if he would only consent to be a king, in the ordinary ac- ceptation of that term. But he wouid consent to nothing of the kind. His mission was, not to set up a rival au- thority and withdraw men from their allegiance to the one only living and true God, as the kings of this world were doing. He sought, on the other hand, to withdraw them from all such idolatrous king worship, the worship of a mere man like themselves, that they might worship the Lord their God, and serve none but Him. ^s a man, among men, " made under the law," and subject to the law of man's social nature, he would not dishonor that law, or violate the holy brotherhood of the race, or re- lease social humanity from the Heaven-imposed responsi- bilities resting upon it, in the matter of civil government, nor dishonor and displace the Heaven-ordained democra- cy of the Hebrew commonwealth, (as obligatory then as ever) by allowing a nation ol idolatrous king worshippers, who saw nothing in him but a strong man, to make an idol of Am.'. Could it be proved (we think it cannot) that the mass of the Je\yish nation desired the crucifixion of Jesus their eloquent prophet and the healer of their dis- eases, so strange a fact could be accounted for in noway so satisfactorily as by supposing that they were disap- pointed and chagrined because he would not assume the reins of civil government as their dictator, their king. Be this as it may, the mass of the Jewish people reject- ed their Messiah because their tastes, their habits of think- ing, their feelings, their aspirations, were altogether too anti- DEMOCRACY" OF CHRISTIANITY. 343 democratic to relish so lowly, so meek, so unpretending a Messiah as he was : one who aspired to no regal honors among men : who had none to confer upon his favorites : one who favored no aristocratic pretensions and respected none : who recognized, everywhere, the equal common brotherhood of the race: who taught that the greatest should be servant of all : who himself washed the feet of the fishermen of Galilee : who reproved aristocratic dis- tinctions and oppressions : who ate with the poor as w^ell as with the rich, and labored with his own hands for the supply of his wants. The mass of the Jewish people re- jected the carpenter of Nazareth, because they bowed down before emperors, and Sanhedrims, and priesthoods, and kings, as for centuries their fathers had been accus- tomed to do, in utter forgetfulness of the simple democ- racy God had provided for them, and under the usages and administration of which, had they retained and hon- ored them, their aristocratic tastes, their sycophancy, and their ser.vility, that now manacled and fettered them, could never have been engendered and nurtured into such gigantic dimensions, beclouding their intellects, extin- guishing their humanity, depraving their affections, and throttling their common sense. The mass of the Jewish people rejected their Messiah because their obsequious compliance with the wishes of their supposed " wisest and best," the habit of seeing through the eyes of their hierarchies, and of acting at the bidding of their heroes, had almost rendered it impracticable for them to see with their own eyes, to "judge, of themselves, what was ri2:ht,'' to direct their own activities, like independent, honest, God-fearing men. Jn other words, their king worship and their priest worship had displaced the wor- ship of God. The mass of tlie Jewish people rejected their Messiah, because, as he told them, they received honor one of another, the honor of men, and not the honor that cometh from God only — because they were like blind men, led by the blind, and both falling into the ditch — be- 344 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. cause they trusted in their councillors, and Rabbis, and great men, instead of turning iheir eyes inward, to con- bult the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. They rejected him because, instead of investigating his claims for themselves, as the democratic spirit would have encouraged them to do, they were ever more in the attitude of sycophants and listeners, bending forward to hear what their crafty ecclesiastics and plot- ting politicians said of him ! " Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him," was a question that, instead of exciting manly derision, was enough, (as in most other aristocratic communities) to remand whole hetacombs of brutalized immortals back into non-exist- ence, so far as individuality of thought and action were concerned. All were not such. Thanks to the All-Wise Dispenser of the providential chastisements already noticed, a seed was preserved — a remnant was saved. The same crush- ing despotisms that had made the faint hearted yet more servile, and pushed forward the nation to its sad destiny, had wounded a more generous and manly class of spirits, that their wounds might be healed. Of their idolatrous king worship, the chosen of God were at length, and in some degree, cured. In the school of Jesus, the maxims of aristocracy and the spirit of sycophancy and ambition were exposed and rebuked. It needed line upon line, and precept upon precept, to dislodge, fully, the autocratic idea, and introduce the democratic in its stead. The two sons of 'Zebidee needed special lessons before they could unlearn what had been taught their nation under the Asmonean dynasty and its successors. U their Mes- siah was to be another Judas Maccabeas or John Hyrca- nus, as they seem to have supposed, they thought it not unbefitting that the second and third posts in the king- dom should be theirs. And Peter, if he did not think of petitioning for the See of Kome, was scandalized at the thought that the king of Israel should wash the feet of DEMOCRACY- OF CHRISTIANITY. 345 his attendants. A higher dignity than that, he may have aspired after himself, as one of the twelve, but he learned another philosophy, as did his fellow disciples, after a time. And not until it was thoroughly learned, and ev- ery vestige of the autocratic philosophy displaced, were the apostles prepared for their work. To sum up the whole in one word : Judea, Jerusalem, the temple, the Jewish church and state, were given over to destruction and extinction, when the democratic els- ment no longer remained to vitalize them, and could not be restored. The New Dispensation, rising as from the ashes of the Old, embodied whatever was worth preserv- ing that had survived. This included the element of De- mocracy, of course, more clearly revealed, more fully de- veloped, manifesting itself in more appropriate forms, and better prepared to expand and propagate itself throuofhout the world. CHAPTER XXV. OF THE NEVv^ TESTAMENT RECOFxDS. It is now so commonly understood that the foundation facts jand historical records of the 'New Testament are democratic in their general aspects and bearings that we shall not need to pause long in the proof or illustration of so plain a position- To present the documentary evidence would be to transcribe a large portion of the Volume itself, including the teachings of Jesus. When we come to treat, more directly, as we hope to do, of the Christian doctrines, in their bearing upon Democra- cy, it will be in place to advert to those teachings again. For the present, it may suffice to glance, rapidly, at the general features of the Xew Testament history, as presented in the four gospels, and in the Acts of the Apostles. We need no* particularize, even here. Every child, at the Sabb atli schoo 346 DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. ■ivill recognize tlie picture, if trutlifully drawn. We cannot do better than to copy a few paragraphs from an article in a Brit- ish periodical, (Tait's Magazine) the writer of which, whoever he may be, gives a graphic description, and holds a terse pen : "'The Christian rehgion,' says Novalis, in words which fre- quent quotation has rendered familiar to us, ' is the root of all democracy — the highest fact in the rights of man.' We be- lieve that this utterance of high-flown ' German mysticism,' as some worthy people call it, is a piece of as sound and sober truth as ever was spoken. The Ciiristian religion, taken from the most general point of view from which we can regard it— as a great moral and spiritual fact in the history of the world — consecrates and sanctifies those principles from which de- mocracy most naturally springs, on which it most securely rests, by which human rights are most effectually vindicated, and Avhich the tyrants and oppressors of mankind most hearti- ly detest. _ " Thus, Christianity consecrates the principle of appealing directly to the common people on the very highest and deepest questions of human interest. The gospel treats the popular intellect with respect and friendliness. There is nothing esoteric in its doctrines or spirit. ' What ye hear in the "ear, that preach ye upon the house-tops,'-^is the mandate of its benefi- cent Founder.^ It recognizes no aristocracy of caste or class, of birth or office — no aristocracy of intellect even: it 'honors all men,' by addressing itself to faculties and feelings which all men in common possess. That 'the poor have the gospel preached unto them' is adduced by Jesus as one of the most distinctive signs of his divine mission: and itis.this, more than any thing else, which constitutes the gospel a great fact the greatest of facts— in the philosophy of'the^ightl of man. This preaching of a gospel to the poor assumes that the poor have faculties for the appreciation of the profoundest of moral truths : that there is nothing too good to be given to them: that the enlightening of their imderstandings, the awakening of their feelings, the guiding of their aspirations to spiritual beaut}-, truth, and good, is a work worthy of the highest order of in- telligence. The Christian religion is the loftiest wisdom de- scending, without any parade of condescension, to commune with the deepest ignorance— lifting up its voice, not in the schools of learning and science, but in the highways of human intercourse, in the very streets and market-places. Here, we take it, is the Education question settled, once for all, on the highest authority. The old Tory anti-education clamor DEMOCRACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 347 about the danger of raising poor people's minds abov^e their station in Ufe, is rebuked by the example of the inspired Teach- er of the world. For, the sort of kno^vledo•e on -which this dangerous tendency is most obviously chargeable, the knowl- edge which most powerfully raises men's minds above the level of the vulgar Avorkin^- world, is given freely and without re- serve to all. Surely, if the doctrines of the Christian theology are not too stimulating a nutriment for common minds, neither is chemistry, nor geology, nor poetry, nor mathematics. The whole circle of the arts and sciences is, we apprehend, less calculated to. raise poor people's minds above the station of life in which it has pleased Providence to place them, than is the disclosure of mysteries, into which, as we are told, ' the angels de'feire to look.' " The gospel is, then, an appeal to thft many, the millions, the common people ; assumes a capacity in the common peo- ple receptive of the deepest and weightiest of moral truths. It is more tlian this. It is an appeal to the many against the fcAv — to the people against their rulers. Such, taken histori- cally, is the most obvious external aspect of the public preach- ing of Jesus. It was a stiri-ing-up of the soul of the Hebrew commonalty into protest and spiritual revolt against a vicious ecclesiastical government. It was an endeavor to create in Palestine an enlightened public opinion, a pure and earnest public morality, adverse to the influence of the constituted au- thorities,, and to the permanence of the existing order of things. That it was infinitely more than this — that this politico-moral feature of the teachings of Jesus was by no means the whole, nor even the chief part, of their significance — we have, of course, no intention to deny. Still, it was this : to say that Christianity does present this aspect, among others, is simply to state an historical fact. Jesus of Nazareth taught the Jew- ish people, Avith the utmost freedom and plainness, a morality subversive of the influence of their rulers; taught them to dis- trust those rulers as 'blind,' and to scorn them ns 'hypocrites.' Here, then, we have another great politic;il truth, resting on the highest authority, and exemplified in the most illustrious of precedents. The gospel Consecrates the principle of moral- force agitation. It recognizes the right and duty of insurrec- tion — the insurrection, that is, of the heart and understanding against hypocrisy and falsehood — though the hypocrisy and falsehood sit in the very seat of Moses, and are environed with the prestige of antiquity and legitimacy. It keeps no teims, except those of truth, with consecrated turpitude, and legiti- mate old-cstabhshed ini(j[uity. It brings human authorities, 348 DEMOCRACY OF OHRlSTIANItv. the most reverend and time-honored— human institutions, the most securely hedged round by tradition, popular veneration, and the use and wont of ages, to the test of eternal and divine moralities, proclaiming that every tree not of God's plantino- shall be rooted up. It speaks the plainest truths about public men in the plainest way. * Hypocrite*,' ' extortioners,' * ser- pents,' * vipers,' ' children of hell' — such is the dialect in which the New Testament speaks of corrupt and unprincipled rulers. The spirit of the book is that of antagonism to existing ideas and established authorities. The first preaching of the gospel drove constituted authorities mad with rage ; scared a guilty tetrarch, and made a Roman governor tremble; and its writ- ten page. (James, Chap, v.) denounces the oppressions and frauds of ' rich men' of the landlord class, in a tone which now-a-days would be thought to savor of the League, or even the charter. * * ''' * * " Its early triumphs consisted, as an apostle eloquently boasts, in the foolish, and weak, and base things of the world, confounding the wise, the mighty, the honored. The history of Christianity is that of a revolution which began with what cabinet ministers and bishops call 'the dregs of the peo- ple,' and mounted upward and upward, till it scaled and cap- tured the throne of the Caesars. The raising of vfillies and laying low of hills v\'as the burden of the prophetic announce- ment of the gospel's approach, and the ' glory to God in the highest,' which angels announced as its final aim, can only be realized wlien ' peace on earth, and good will among men' shall be established universally upon the basis of pohtical jus- tice." Little more need be said on this topic. The babe of Beth- lehem — the stable — the manger — the carpenter of Xazareth — the fishermen of Galilee — the meek yet triumphant entry into Jerusalem upon '' a colt, the foal of an ass — all these, familiar as household words, and engraven upon the memory of all Christendom, tell a story so plain, yet significant, that the way- faring man, though a fool, need not err. That J esus was of the lineage of David, and heir of his throne, was a fact that, so far from identifying him with the great ones of earth, gave to his obscurity, humiliation, and poverty, a deeper coloring, and to his refusal of that throne, in its literal sense, fresh emphasis of meaning. FINIS. Date Due * 1 1 1 JUN 1 5 1988 jyw-i^j^w-- ^ >M Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 1 1012 01049 9459 iHHi iiill; llf