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houses, work in their rice-plantations, and do all the services that may be necessary; and this often lasts three or four years, before they can be married. Dapper's Africa, p. 399. In some parts of Tonquin, it is usual for a young man to live in the house of the parents of the girl he intends to marry, and he even does all the household work for a couple of years. If, after the expiration of the service, both parties do not agree, and the marriage does not take place, the suitor receives payment for his services. De la Bissachere, Etat actuel du Tunkin, tom. i. p. 270."

Jewish Antiquities.

OF THE HEBREW GOVERNMENT.

From the Patriarchal Times to the Babylonian Captivity.

From the Creation to A. M. 3416-B. C. 4004-588.

Of the forms of government which prevailed among mankind from the creation to the flood, or indeed down to the time of Moses, our information is exceedingly limited. That some form, however, obtained in those ages of the world, appears, not only from the consideration that civil government is founded in the natural order and reason of things, but likewise from the narratives which we possess of the lives and manners of the ancient patriarchs.

It is natural to suppose, that Adam, the progenitor of mankind, would be acknowledged as supreme among his children; and that while he lived, the authority which he exercised over them would be unlimited. When his posterity separated into distinct families, we find the respective fathers of each tribe acknowledged as their prince, and maintaining the chief power and command over them, without being accountable to any higher authority.

The precise extent of power which was claimed and exercised by the patriarchs has long been a disputed point. Several authors of the highest respectability have conceived that the heads of families, under the patriarchal government, were ordinarily invested with such a despotic power, as to be capable of disinheriting their children, of punishing them with death, of dismissing them from home without assigning a reason, and likewise of pronouncing a solemn blessing or curse upon them. The subject, however, appears to be involved in many difficulties, and the cases adduced to support the above supposition are far from being sufficient to establish the point. Every family, however, under the authority of its own head, was, as we have before hinted, quite independent of any foreign power: it was a little state, of which the father was, in a manner, king. They tended their flocks and herds where they chose, they vindicated their wrongs by arms whensoever they had sustained any injury, they made war and peace when they pleased, they treated with the petty kings, who reigned in the different parts of Palestine, as their equals in dignity, and concluded alliances with them in their own right. (Gen. xiii. 9-12. xiv. xxi. 22-32. xxvi. 12-23.) It must likewise be remarked, that to the paternal power, in these ages, the sacerdotal dignity seems to have been annexed; so that the heads of families not only possessed a secular power, but also officiated as priests in the families to which they belonged. (Gen. viii. 20. xxxv. 1-3. Job i. 5. xlii. 8.) Such appears to have been the form of the patriarchal government, which lasted, at least, until the death of Jacob. Afterwards, however, as his posterity increased in Egypt, it became necessary to have magistrates or governors, invested with more extensive authority; these are termed Elders. (Exod. iii. 16. iv. 29.) With the precise nature of their office we have no means of acquiring a knowledge; some have supposed they were judges in the civil courts of the Israelites, because we find this title afterwards applied to such judges. (Deut. xxi. 2. xix. 12. and several other places.) But against such a supposition it has been urged as an objection, that when Moses had brought the people out of Egypt, there were no such judges among

them; he being compelled to judge all himself, to his great inconvenience. (Exod. xviii. 13, &c.) As for the Shoterim, "officers of the children of Israel," mentioned Exod. v. 14--19, which have been conjectured to be a kind of magistrates elected by them, they were more probably appointed, and set over them by the Egyptians, merely for the purpose of overseeing the work in which they were employed.

On the departure of the Israelites from the land of their oppressors, under the guidance of Moses, Jehovah was pleased to institute a new form of government termed a THEOCRACY*; the supreme legislative power being exclusively vested in God, or in his ORACLE, who alone could enact or repeal laws.

The Hebrew government appears not only designed to subserve the common and general ends of all good governments,-viz. the protection of property, liberty, safety, and peace of the several members of the community, (in which the true happiness and prosperity of states will always consist);-but also to set apart the Hebrews or Israelites as a "holy people to Jehovah, and a kingdom of priests." For thus Moses is directed to tell

"The word Theocratia," says Dr. Jennings, "very happily expresses that peculiar government, which God exercised over the children of Israel. To them he stood in a threefold relation :

First, As their Creator, in common with the rest of mankind; and therefore, as Lord of their consciences, he required from them all the duties of the moral law. Secondly, He was their God, as they were a visible church, separated from all the nations of the earth to be his peculiar people. In this character he prescribed the peculiar forms and distinguishing rites and ceremonies of their religious worship.

Thirdly, He was their proper King, the sovereign of their body politic; in which character he gave them judicial or political laws, relating to government and civil life: he ordered a royal palace (the tabernacle) to be built for his residence among them, in which he dwelt, or manifested his special presence, by the Shechinah, as the Jews call it; that is, by a bright cloud or glory, appearing over the mercy-seat, betwixt the two cherubim in the innermost room of that palace (Lev. xvi. 2.); on which account he is said to "dwell betwixt the cherubim," Ps. lxxx. 1; and to "sit betwixt the cherubim," Ps. xcix. 1. From thence he gave forth oracles, or signified his will concerning matters of importance to the state, which were not determined by the body of written laws."-Heb. Antiquities, pp. 10, 11. 8vo. Edin. 1808.

VOL. I.

the children of Israel: "Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. Now, therefore, if ye will hear my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people; for all the earth is mine, and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation." (Exod. xix. 3-6.) We learn what this covenant was in a further account of it. "Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord your God, your captains of your tribes, your elders and your officers, with all the men of Israel ;-that thou shouldst enter into covenant with the Lord thy God, and into his oath which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day; that he may establish thee to-day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob:-for ye know," adds Moses, "how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the nations which ye passed by: and ye have seen their abominations and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them, lest there should be among you, man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the Lord our God to go and serve the Gods of these nations." (Deut. xxix. 10-18.)

From these passages, it is evident that the fundamental principle of the Mosaic law was, the maintenance of one true God, and the prevention, or rather the proscription, of polytheism and idolatry. The covenant of Jehovah with the Hebrew people, and their oath, by which they were bound in allegiance to Jehovah their God and king, was, that they should obey the laws which he should appoint as their supreme Governor, with a particular engagement to keep themselves from the idolatry of the nations round about them, whether that of the land of Egypt while they dwelt there, or that which they had observed in the nations through which they passed into the promised land. In keeping this allegiance to Jehovah, as their immediate and supreme Lord, they were to expect the blessings of God's immediate and particular protection in the security of their liberty, peace, and prosperity, against

all attempts of their idolatrous neighbours; but if they should break their allegiance to Jehovah, or forsake his covenant by going and serving other gods, and worshipping them, then they should forfeit these blessings of God's protection, and the anger of Jehovah should be kindled against the land, to bring upon it all the curses written in the book of Deuteronomy. (xix. 25-27.) The substance, then, of this solemn transaction between God and the Israelites, (which may be called the original contract of the Hebrew government) was this-If the Hebrews would voluntarily consent to receive Jehovah their Lord and King, to keep his covenant and laws, to honour and worship him as the one true God, in opposition to all idolatry; then, though God, as sovereign of the world, rules over all the nations of the earth, and all nations are under the general care of his providence, he would govern the Hebrew nation by peculiar laws of his particular appointment, and bless it with a more immediate and particular protection; he would secure to them the invaluable privileges of the true religion, together with liberty, peace, and prosperity, as a favoured people above all other nations. This constitution, it will be observed, is enforced chiefly by temporal sanctions, and that with singular wisdom: for temporal blessings and evils were at that time the common and prevailing incitements to idolatry; but, by thus taking them into the Hebrew constitution, as rewards to obedience and punishments for disobedience, they became motives to continuance in the true religion, instead of encouragements to idolatry.*

[To be continued.]

The Generations of the Sons of Noah.

(Illustrative of the Map.)

By the descendants of the three sons of Noah " were the nations divided in the earth after the flood;" and that, as is

* Horne's Introduction, vol. iii. pp. 77-78. Lowman on the Civil Government of the Hebrews, pp. 8-10. See also Dr. Grove's Lectures on the Pentateuch, vol. ii. pp. 141-185, for some masterly observations on the introduction of temporal sanctions into the Mosaic law.

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