The Obligations of Legislative Science to the Bible

Our last lecture expatiated upon the literary merit of the sacred writings. We purpose at the present opportunity, to contemplate the influence this remarkable book has exerted upon human laws — upon the science of legislation and the great principles of jurisprudence. From the nature of the subject, it will be seen that it will more tax the sober thought of my audience, than the previous lecture, if it does not even tresspass somewhat upon their patience.

As a general remark, it is no doubt true, that, like every other science, law has advanced gradually to its present state of improvement. But this remark is to be received with some qualification. That the Mosaic code was the first written law ever delivered to any nation no man will deny. And yet it was delivered in a state of high perfection.

Theoretical philosophers who have set aside, or forgotten the inspiration of the Scriptures, have taught that the earlier codes of law, — codes designed for men in their wildest state, and at a period of the world when their wants were few and simple, their rights acknowledged, and their crimes had scarcely begun to be flagitious, — were necessarily very limited and very imperfect. They tell us that the first regulations of human society were those domestic rules which the father of a family would have occasion to observe in the control of his household. When men began to unite in villages and cities, these more private regulations would be found inadequate to restrain a more numerous society 5 and a body of rules, as well as an authority accompanied by greater power than the paternal, became necessary. They tell us, that afterwards, when towns and cities united for their common convenience and defence, the judicial regulations necessarily became multiplied j and the supreme authority from which they emanated, and by which they were to be enforced, issued sooner or later in different forms of magistracy. And as the conduct of the wisest and most just men would naturally suggest a rule of conduct to others, so their counsels and advice would gradually acquire force, and be adopted as a general regulation. And hence they tell us, that sages and philosophers were the first authors of laws.

Now, all this proceeds upon an entirely gratuitous assumption 5 an assumption as contrary to sober, uninspired history, as it is to the word of God. That assumption is “that the original state of man was exceedingly degraded 5 that he occupied a rank at first, little, if any, above the beasts of the field 5 and that having by his own exertions gradually escaped from the state of brutality in which he was originally found, he is in a constant course of improvement.” How far this hypothesis is at variance with facts, I leave believers, and indeed I might say, unbelievers, in Divine Revelation to determine. Since the fall of man from that state of primeval integrity and blessedness in which he was created, unaided by wisdom and laws revealed from heaven, the invariable tendency of his nature has been to sink deeper and deeper into darkness and lawless corruption. Hence God gave him law at his first creation 5 and by oral communications from heaven, guided and instructed him for the first twenty-five hundred years, until he gave the Hebrew nation their memorable code from Mount Sinai.

“If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” The enactment of wise laws, and the due administration of justice in any community, are so intimately inwoven with its best interests, and of such acknowledged importance, that they need not become the topics of remark. Law is the measure of right. It gives every man a rule of action, and prescribes a course of conduct which entitles him to the support and protection of society. It teaches men to know when they commit injury, and when they suffer it. Every just law is dictated by reason and benevolence. Of the authority to command and the obligation to obedience, the foundation, or principle, is the happiness of those to whom the rule is directed. “Salus popuU suprema lex.” None will doubt that the goodness of all laws depends upon their intrinsic rectitude and benevolent influence.

“The hand of time has been passing over the mighty fabric of human laws for four thousand years j” and yet little has been added to the stock of legal science, and little change has been made in the most improved principles of human jurisprudence since the days of Moses. As might have been justly supposed, there have been great improvements in commercial law, because the Hebrews were an agricultural, and not extensively a commercial people. And there have been improvements in international law, because the Hebrews were, by divine command, separated from other nations. Laws also have been changed by the condition of the countries for which they have been enacted; they have been extended in their specifications 5 they have been modified by the character, customs, religion, soil, position, and pursuits of different nations; but the fundamental principles, the great outline of legislative science, is found in the civil polity of the Jews. The last four books of the Pentateuch contain the foundations of all wise legislation.

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

“Concerning thy testimonies,” says the Psalmist, “I have known that thou hast founded them for ever. I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right.” The moral law is built upon firm and immutable foundations. It was not imposed by arbitrary will, but corresponds to truth, to the nature of intelligent beings, and the relations they sustain toward God and one another. It is adapted to all times, and places, and intelligences 5 is without change, or abatement j and is alike fitted to earth and to heaven. It requires what human laws may not require, — perfect holiness 5 and it forbids what man may not forbid, — all sin. It has a province with which no human code may interfere *, for it controls the heart.

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

Was it not a law contemplating man as about forming a community 5 and laying down certain rules, not merely fit for individual conscience, but as also the indispensable requisites of a social state? In this sense, they are not merely rules of conduct as to internal conscience, and which make men responsible to God; but rules of social existence, without which human society cannot continue, and which make men responsible to the State. Do they not embody, both rules of conscience and the great principles of union among men, and constitute the vital basis of social organization? These ten commandments are indeed a wonderful code. So comprehensive a summary of the indispensable principles of a social state, and so wonderful a summary of moral duty, never could have been of human invention. This great moral code deserves to stand at the head of all the Mosaic institutions, and through the people to whom it was originally proclaimed, to address its claims to all the nations of men.

Next to this great moral law, there is what may be called the Civil or Political Laws. They differ from the moral law in several important particulars *, but in none more than this, that they do not require absolute perfection, nor forbid all sin. In other and plainer language, they tolerate what is wrong, and what the moral law does not tolerate. They tolerate imperfection at hearty for they do not profess to reach the heart. That is done by another law, and by no mere civil, political code. They tolerate imperfection in the life 5 for no system of human legislation, even though God were its author, would ever attempt to secure even a perfectly blameless exterior. Hence there were usages in the Hebrew nation which were inconsistent with the moral law, and with the general scope and spirit of the divine oracles, which the civil code of the Old Testament did not prohibit to the Hebrew people.

Great complaint has been made against the Old Testament for these connivances 5 but great injustice has been done to it in this particular. We have said, that every just law is dictated in wisdom. But while it is indispensable to the due administration of justice, that no law should be unjust, it is not indispensable that every just law which may be thought of should be enacted. A civil code may legislate too much, as well as too little. The object of a law should always be attainable, and always of sufficient importance to demand its enactment. It may be to a high degree fit and proper that men, as citizens, should do right in every thing 5 while it may not be fit and proper, that any system of mere human legislation should require absolute perfection in human conduct. This, as has been before remarked, is the province of a moral, and not a civil code. This is the province of the divine lawgiver, acting as the moral governor of men, and not of human legislation. He must do this, or his law would not be holy, just and good nor commend itself to the conscience. He cannot do less, however extensive his empire, and however remote the period of time, or ages of eternity to which his government is extended. The great pecuharity of his moral government is, that it is a perfect government, conniving at no kind or degree of wickedness, and adjusting penalty to crime with that perfect precision and exactness of moral balance, that is in all cases proportioned to the measure of its ill desert. But this is not the work of human legislation, unless men may legislate for God, and with the design of securing a sinless community. This were impracticable and visionary. Even were there such a thing as perfect rectitude among men, it would be impossible for any civil code to draw the line between guilt and innocence by any distinct or dejfinite limitations. Nor could justice ever become so active, vigilant and cautious, as to prevent, or punish every instance of wickedness. The difficulty of a civil law in attempting to reach everything wrong is but half. The still greater difficulty also would be, in enforcing such laws when made. Their minuteness would render them difficult to be known; transgressions would be constant, and the whole business of society, would be the discovering, trying, and punishing of offences. Intention too would be the corpus delicti and this would have to be tried by fallible judges, liable to partiality and corruption, and by means of witnesses perhaps still more hable. I can imagine no state of anarchy or contention equal to that which would be produced by civil laws attempting to enforce all that is right, and to prohibit all that is wrong. The basis of all legislation by general rules admits of partial evil for general good 5 and this is the only practicable legislation. Moses, for example, allowed polygamy, because, in that age of the world it was not once thought of as a sin 5 and the time had not come for him to sunder the ten thousand bonds which existed all over the nation between husbands and wives, parents and children, and suddenly break up the foundations of long established society by enforcing the original law of marriage. And for the same reason he allowed of divorce for other causes than conjugal infidelity, and also because in a state of society where polygamy is allowed, one of the means of gradually preventing polygamy was not to render divorces too difficult.

It is essential to a moral law, as we have before intimated, that it tolerate nothing that is wrong, however strong the reasons for the connivance j while it is essential to the wisdom of every code of civil legislation, that it connive at many things, lest by aiming at too much it defeat its own designs. - Take a plain and familiar example. What course would a wise man pursue, if he were to form a Civil Code for the Sandwich Islands, or for the colonies on the coast of Africa? God has already proclaimed to them his moral law requiring perfect holiness. This law the faithful missionary of the cross illustrates and enforces in all the perfection of its precepts, and all the severity of its sanctions. But as a virtuous and wise jurist, he is called upon to modify and change their civil code by which they shall regulate their mutual intercourse, define rights and tresspass, and crimes; try criminals, and determine civil actions. It would be puerile to suppose that he would prescribe to them the ten commandments or which would amount to the same thing, that he wpuld expressly prohibit by penal sanctions everything which is not accordant to the perfect demands of the moral law. He would obviously inquire, to what extent it is practicable, expedient, and conducive to the ends of good government to require all that is right, and forbid all that is wrong. While the code which he would estabhsh would enjoin nothing that is sinful, under a sound discretion he would ask, to what extent it might tolerate and suffer some evils, lest it should defeat its own design. Nay, would he not even establish laws to regulate those very evils; to prevent the increase and abuse of them, that ultimately and in a more improved and advanced state of society, they might be wholly eradicated? Now this is what infinite wisdom he is done in the civil code of the Hebrews. The moral law he had given them. But that recently enslaved people were about to assume a new character. They were about to be organized into a body politic and to be constituted the Hebrew state. And in this crisis of their history, God himself was their counsellor. He condescended to give them statutes and judgmeMts and to become the author and framer of their civil and judicial code. And would you deny to him the discretion of a wise jurist? Is it to be supposed that he would conduct so weighty a concern with any lack of wisdom, or any want of regard for the condition and character of the people for whom he was about to legislate? John Locke could write with distinguished ability on the powers of the human mind j but when he comes to discuss the great practical questions of civil government, and to prepare a constitution for a free state, he is like Samson shorn of his strength. The divine wisdom was never more needed by the Hebrew nation than at the commencement of their political existence, just after they had escaped the servitude of Egypt. Cavillers at the political law of the Hebrews, seem to have lost sight of the very obvious distinction between their moral and civil code j while a very slight attention to the Scriptures, and to the nature of the case evinces that they were delivered at different times, to different persons, and for widely different purposes. The object of their civil laws is to define and illustrate the doctrine of personal rights 5 to govern their intercourse in the common transactions of human Hfej to extend their influence into the domestic circle, and regulate the reciprocal duties of husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant. And most abundantly do they indicate their divine Author.

We cannot do justice to this part of our subject without entering briefly into some specifications. The caution with which the Mosaic law prevented the accumulation of debt, — the fidelity with which they required the restoration of lost property, — the restoring of property that was injured, or stolen, in the former case to the full amount of its original value, and in the latter to double that amount, — and the distinctness and simplicity of the law of bailment, are replete with instruction to every succeeding generation of men. Any man who carefully reads that beautiful treatise of Sir William Jones on this last subject, will see that all the leading principles of the law of bailment there illustrated, are found in the law of Moses.* In the Mosaic code you find the following law in relation to injuries arising from carelessness and inattention. “If a man shall open a pit, or if a man shall dig a pit, and not cover it, and an ox, or an ass fall therein, the owner of the pit shall make it good, and give money unto the owner of them 5 and the dead beast shall be his. And if one man’s ox hurt another’s that he die 5 then they shall sell the live ox, and divide the money of it 5 and the dead ox also they shall divide.” This law contains the germ of all the existing refinements of the law of injuries from want of care, and those arising without fault. There is a nice equity in this law, where, upon payment for

* Exod. 22. 14, 15.

the damages, “the beast shall be his” who was the occasion of the injury. The division of the loss, too, where neither party is in fault, is a very refined notion of equity. It is the rule at the present day, in the case of the collision of ships; and is both more equitable and more tender than leaving the loss upon that party who, by accident, first sustains it. Dividing the loss also greatly diminished the temptation to quarrel about the probable fault, and to prevent a litigation 5 and this is a cardinal object of all wise governments.* The doctrine of restitution in the cases of theft, of the difference in the degree of restitution between the selling and killing the stolen ox, or sheep, and its being found in the thief’s hand, was both most just and most politic. As the article could be restored, there was no fear of the thief’s gaining by a difference of value between the sold or killed ox, and those to be restored.f The law of mandatories or the law concerning property given in charge for safe keeping, is not to be surpassed for wisdom and equity 5 and all the refinements of the law to this day, do not carry the principle any further.J No rule of damages in cases of seduction is so wise as that in the law of Moses. It is the usual one lawyers now present to juries, where the case is one of real deception.|| These, and

* Exodus 21. 33 — 35. fib. 22. 1 — 4. lb. 7 — 15.

8 lb. 16. 17. other similar laws are expressive of great wisdom, and have been uniformly honoured by all wise and benevolent legislators.

It has no doubt occurred to the intelligent reader of the Mosaic law, that there is a series of tender and sentimental injunctions the design of which was to form the moral sensibilities of the Hebrews by a standard at once the most refined and honourable. They consist chiefly of precepts directory, to which no penalty is annexed, except that which might be inflicted by the all-governing hand of God in the ordinary dispensations of his providence. But they were designed to exert a powerful influence 5 to be great moral axioms; to guard men against unnatural obduracy, and hardness of feeling; and be a sort of standing appeal to the tenderness and honour of men in all their mutual intercourse. I allude to such examples as the following. “Thou shalt not vex a stranger, nor oppress him 5 for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Ye shall not afiiict any widow, nor fatherless child. If thou afllict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry 5 and my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword 5 and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.” God bound them to act in this matter from an affectionate regard to his authority 5 and gave them distinctly to understand, that if they refused to do so, he himself would become the guardian of the poor, the father of the fatherless, the protector of the helpless orphan, the widow’s God, and the avenger of her wrongs. A law like this is an everlasting testimony against the man who neglects the sufferings of his brethren j and though he may have all the religious ardour and zeal of a martyr, it denounces him as a base dissembler. Of the same general character is the injunction, to leave the “forgotten sheaf” in the field in the time of harvest; not “go over the boughs of the olive tree a second time;” nor “twice glean the grapes of their vineyard j” but that what remained after the first gathering, should be left for “the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow.” The same remarks are also pertinent to the rule as to “pledges,” forbidding them to “take the upper or nether millstone to pledge,” because this was the life, and only remaining means of sustenance to the poor. There is a remarkable delicacy too, a singular refinement of feeHng in the law relative to pledges. “When thou dost lend thy brother any thing, thou shalt not go into his house to fetch his pledge.” You may not enter there to discover the nakedness of the land. Your eye shall not penetrate the miseries of his humble dwelling. Your presence shall not bring the blush of shame upon the face of his mortified family. You shall not have the opportunity of pubHshing to the world their abjectness and low estate. “Thou shalt stand abroad, and the man to whom thou dost lend, shall bring out the pledge abroad unto thee.” Of the same general character is the law that required a man, if he “met his enemy s ox, or ass going astray, to bring it back to him again 5” the law that the ‘•’ wages of every hired labourer should be paid punctually before the going down of the sun 5” the injunction against slander and tale bearing j the law against usury and the law which even guards against hardening the feelings by destroying the bird with her eggs. Now, all this was above any mere philosopher, sage, or hero. These precepts are very touching 5 they are the finest political morahty; and not only very high morahty, but very deep sentiment. A leader of a horde of fugitive slaves, who had employed his time in tending sheep upon the mountains of Arabia Petrea, and associating with oppressed makers of bricks, could hardly, of his own undirected wisdom, have been so sentimental in his equity. A collection of the rules of this general character would be one of the most striking

collections of kind, considerate, and merciful legislation ever known 5 and can scarcely be believed of a lawgiver so sternly denouncing blood for every crime which struck at the social organization. The combination of the two things proves him, not to have been a cruel, and to have been a wise legislator.

The trial of jealousy also is a singular institution among the Hebrews, if actually practised. But there is in it such an appeal to the secret terror of a guilty conscience, as to have prevented any but the innocent from submitting to its apparently harmless portions. How different was this trial to an innocent person from the trials of Ordeal in the dark ages. What innocent wife could walk over burning plough shares 5 steep her hands or feet in burning oil; or float, when fettered, in the horse-pond? The poor Jewess had an ordeal which could not hurt the innocent; while the middle ages had ordeals which left the innocent no chance of escape.

So likewise the reference of matters of so much nicety as not to be capable of solution by judges, to the priesthood as a hody and punishing with death a presumptuous contempt of the sentence, was well calculated to protect the ordinary magistrate from the animosity of a losing party, where the question of right was very difficult, and where the loosing party would never be satisfied with a mere reason. In modern constitutions it is now necessary to rest the ultimate decision of difficult matters to large bodies, who cannot, from their very multitude, be objects of personal animosity.

After their civil, or political laws, is their code of Penal Statutes. Law punishes as well as protects j and punishes only to strengthen its protection. In a well governed state, crime is prevented more frequently than punished. To make punishment unnecessary is the great employment of legislative wisdom. There are, I know, some peculiarities in the penal code of the Hebrews which have been the subject of loud complaint. Not a few of these peculiarities are to be accounted for by the fact that they were designed to keep that people distinct from the rest of mankind, and thus prevent their being involved in the idolatry of the pagan world. Infidels have made themselves merry also at the minuteness of this code. And it may be, that there are some honest, but fastidious readers of the Old Testament whose delicacy has been wounded at the rehearsal of some of those very recitals, which have contributed to the formation of that high standard of susceptibility which shrinks from the conception of laws so necessary to this degraded people. When we consider that the Mosaic code was prescribed for a people ignorant of all law 5 a people who had just emerged from the most abject slavery 5 a people scarcely beyond the limits of the most loathsome and defiling paganism 5 we shall cease to wonder at the minuteness of its details, and admire the divine wisdom and condescension in stooping thus to their low condition.

There are several striking points of difference between the Mosaic penal code and that of most modern states. One of these is the requiring of two witnesses for every mortal crime, and that the witnesses should aid in the execution of the guilty. This is a very remarkable provision among such a people as the Hebrews; wonderfully calculated to prevent false testimony, and deserves imitation among the most enlightened judges and legislators. Another is, that they had no law of imprisonment, either for debt, or for crime. There are but two recorded exceptions to this remark within my knowledge. The one is the keeping of a criminal in custody for a single night, until the will of the Deity could be consulted concerning him, and the other is the appointment of the cities of refuge for the man-slayer. Though of ancient usage and origin, imprisonment did not originate with the law of Moses. Instead of imprisoning for crime, the Mosaic code requires the immediate and prompt execution of the law. It was their doctrine that laws were made to be executed; and the divine lawgiver saw fit to decide that there should be no needless delay in the execution. Another striking difference related to the character of the crimes that were punishable with death. They were all either of high moral mahgnity, or crimes that tended to the subversion of their whole civil polity, and endangered the social existence of the nation. The propriety of the law against them rests upon the same grounds as the punishment of treason and murder, and is fully justified. In ordinary cases, constituted as that nation was, under a Theocracy they strike at the root of social existence *, and the severity of the punishment against them was in self-defence for the very existence of society. Besides, with a people of extreme simplicity as to property, almost the only punishment must be personal 5 and as they were emerging from a slavery where the taking of life was probably very common, capricious, and despotic, without severe punishments they were without any. One thing also, is quite remarkable in a code where the ignorance of the people and the simplicity of property and social state left the lawgiver few punishments of which to choose and threw him upon stripes or death. I mean the tenderness of bloody and the almost superstitious reverence for human life. The ox that killed a man, or woman, was stoned, nor should his flesh be eaten 5 and if he were an unruly ox, and this be known to his owner, not only was the ox stoned, but his owner was put to death. This is the origin of all those forfeitures in law which arise from the misfortune rather than the crime of the owner, and are called deodand.* It is not long since this principle was carried into extensive operation in the laws of England. Whatever personal chattel was the immediate occasion of the death of any reasonable creature, was forfeited to the king and applied to benevolent purposes. Bracton states the law to have been, that “all things which, while in motion, caused death, are to be offered to God.” But the English law was even more extensive than this. If a man were killed by a fall from a cart, or a horse, the cart or horse was forfeited. A well in which a person was drowned, was ordered to be filled up under the inspection of the coroner. And among the Athenians, “whatever was the cause of man’s

* Blackstone’s Commentaries, vol I. chapter 8th. death by falling upon him, was exterminated, or cast out of the dominions of the repubhc.” There seems to us to be superstition in such a law, but it is a humane superstition. The mind was taught by it to contemplate with horror the privation of human life; and it might not be familiar even with an insensible object which had been the occasion of death, lest that sentiment should be diminished. The most corrupt and melancholy state of human society is that in which the mind becomes familiarized to blood; and it is a question of grave import, whether any thing is gained by abrogating even the sacred, and, if you please, superstitious, regard to human life which was inspired by this great principle of the Mosaic code.

When you take up the special examples of penal law under this code, you cannot but admire their wisdom. You have in the first place idolatry and the penalty was death. It was treason against the state, to acknowledge any other as king, than God. This crime also was always connected with the inhuman and bloody practice of offering human sacrifices. It was of most aggravated enormity, and struck at the very existence of the nation. The next crime is blasphemy and was punished with death for the same sufficient reason. The next is deliberate and wilful murder. “He that smiteth a man so that he die, shall surely be put to death.” This was a re-pubUcation of the law given to Noah, and in my humble judgment is obligatory upon the world in all subsequent ages. The nice distinctions laid down in the Mosaic code between murder and manslaughter, are to the present day the just and recognized principles of the law of homicide, and are carried out into every ramification without any new principle. Another mortal crime is smiting a parent. This is a very unnatural, uncommon, and improbable crime. Like several others, it struck at the basis of society, framed as it was on a patriarchal model and organization, which could not continue long on the land given to it unless the simple principles of its organization were severely defended. So of cursng a parent., which was also punished with the same severity. And so of inveterate disobedience to parents for the same reason. So also of incest — sodomy — bestiality — -forcible violation — and adultery and all for the same reason. So also of false pretensions to prophecy for the same reasons with idolatry and blasphemy. So also of witchcraft. Whether witchcraft be imaginary, or not, no cruelty is known equal to that committed by pretenders to this mystery. Witness the medicine men of our own western Indians. In an ignorant body of slaves, without intelligence and subject to superstitions, pretensions to witchcraft were likely to be most disastrous to the happiness of the people, and very dangerous to the government: and I would at this day, legislating for our Indians, or for negroes subject to Obi superstition, punish conjuring with death, quite as readily as for any crime short of actual murder, or treason.

The only other crimes punishable with death by the Mosaic code, were manstealing, Sabbath breaking, and contumacious resistance against the supreme authority of the State. The time was, and that less than two hundred years ago, when by the laws of England, one hundred and forty-eight crimes were punishable with death. By the Mosaic code there are seventeen. Let the profane cease from their rebukes of the penal statutes of Moses!

There is one fact in relation to the Mosaic code which is a severe rebuke to modern governments. No injury simply affecting property no invasion of personal rights whatever, could draw down upon an Israelite an ignominious death. Mammon was not the god of the Mosaic law. That code respected moral depravity more than gold. Moral turpitude and the most atrocious expressions of moral turpitude, these were the objects of its unsleeping severity.

“Mammon leads us on, Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell From heaven; for e’en in heaven his looks and thoughts Were always downward bent, admiring more The riches of heaven’s pavement, trodden gold, Than ought divine or holy.” —

Nor is it a slight commendation of that code, that its laws were equal. Ye “shall have one manner of law as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country.” Every man in the community had the same protection from the penal laws.

Not a little has been said against the law of retaliation, or the lex talionis as it is enjoined in this code. But has it not been hastily said? No man doubts that, as the law of individual and private revenge it is wrong. It is in this view, and only in this view, that it is condemned by the Saviour, and superseded by the injunction, “Resist not evil.” No man may take the law into his own hands, and become at pleasure the avenger of his own wrongs. But where is its severity, or iniquitableness, as the adjudicated decision of a legal tribunal? The lex talionis in relation to deliberate and premeditated crimes is just, and it is not certainly impolitic. “Thou shall give life for life.” Nor do I see any injustice, or inexpediency in punishing deliberate maiming by a similar judicial maiming. No man can say, it is not the measure of punishment most consonant to natural equity. As applied to perjury, a crime always of great and studied premeditation, there is a strong propriety in its being rigidly executed, and in doing to the perjurer “as he had thought to have done unto his brother.”

Nor let the conscientious reader of the Mosaic law be induced to imagine that there is any thing either in the civil or penal code of the Hebrews that requires and justifies sin. It is not so. Great injustice has been done in this particular to the Old Testament, as I have remarked before.

There is a difference between a moral and a judicial code, even though proceeding from the same source; and though what the former may not allow, the latter may not require yet what the former may forbid, the latter may leave unnoticed, and even regulate and control. It is not necessary that a code of civil laws should adjudicate upon every moral evil. It is not best that it should. Notwithstanding all that has been said and written, there is no evidence to my mind that there is any thing in the laws of Moses which countervails the unchanging principles of moral rectitude. Sometimes you find the Saviour, when commenting on that code, giving the preference to a moral precept over a positive institution, but this is no evidence that the positive institution was sinful. Moses “suffered some things for the hardness of the hearts of the people,” which, in a subsequent age and a different state of society, he would not have suffered 5 but this is no evidence that what he judicially suffered he morally approved. Not an instance can be found in which the divine command required that, which can upon any fair construction, be regarded as a violation of that rule of right, which is founded in the nature and relation of things, and is written in every human heart. The Jews in the time of Christ had erroneous views of the laws of Moses, and perverted them, and needed the exposition which was given them by the Saviour. And not a few at the present day have erroneous views of the instructions of Christ, and pervert them, and need to be taught that they are perfectly consistent with the instructions of Moses. The gospel is in advance of the law, but not in opposition to the law. Moses wrote of Christ, and if we believe the words of Christ, we shall believe the writings of Moses.

The Jews were a favoured people. Their penal laws are so much distinguished for discretion, humanity, equity, and mildness, that they cannot but challenge the admiration of every intelligent jurist. Let them be compared with Hales’ Pleas of the Crown, and it is no difficult matter to see on which side the advantage lies. Nothing escapes their notice. They guard the morals as well as the persons of the community. It were well if every crowded city had as good a system of sanitary regulations as the camp of Israel. The uniform tendency of their whole system of jurisprudence was to promote a good understanding between man and man 5 and the great object of their police, the prevention, rather than the punishment of crime. Moses is not less truly the great lawgiver, than the first historian. The surrounding and contemporaneous nations were far in the rear of this favoured people in every department of legislative knowledge. Chaldea, Egypt, Phoenicia, Media, Persia, then under the sovereignty of Cherdorlaomer, had every thing to learn on this subject from the Hebrews. “• What nation,” says the God of Israel to his chosen people, “what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous, as all this law which I set before you this day?”

Men do not always follow ancient customs because they are wise. And yet is there no doubt that many succeeding ages, as well as those that were contemporaneous, were deeply indebted to the Mosaic institutions. Dr. Graves, in his admirable lectures on the Pentateuch, says, that “the Mosaic code must have been generally known in those eastern countries from which the most ancient and celebrated legislators and sages derived the model of their laws.” Moses indeed labours to impress this thought upon his countrymen as a powerful motive for a careful observance of their institutions. “Keep therefore and do them, for this is your wisdem and your understanding in the sight of the nations which shall hear of all these statutes, and say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” The lawgivers of nations bordering on the Jews borrowed many of their institutions from the laws of Moses. This was obviously true of the Egyptians and the Phoenicians. During the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus, while the Jews were scattered throughout the kingdom of Persia, their laws were the subjects of reniark and notoriety j for Haman speaks of them to the king as “diverse from the laws of all people.” That the extent to which the laws of Greece were indebted to the institutions of Moses was not inconsiderable, may be inferred from the influence of the Hebrew State on the political condition of the world, during the early ages of the Grecian history, as well as from the direct testimony of learned men. Very many points of resemblance between the Grecian laws and customs, and those of the Hebrews are stated by Archbishop Potter, in his Antiquities. The Athenians had a prescribed bill of divorce, and so had the Jews. Among the Jews, the father gave names to the children 5 and such was the custom among the Greeks. The purgation oath among the Greeks strongly resembles the oath of jealousy among the Hebrews. The harvest and vintage festival among the Greeks — the presentation of the best of their flocks, and the oflTering of their first fruits to the gods — together with the portion prescribed for the priests — the interdiction against garments of diverse colours — protection from violence to the man who fled to their altars — would seem to indicate that the Greeks had cautiously copied the usages of the Jews. And whence was it that no person was permitted to approach the altar of Diana, who had touched a dead body, or been exposed to other causes of impurity, and that the laws of Athens admitted no man to the priesthood who had any blemish upon his person, unless from the institutions of Moses? And has not the agrarian law of Lycurgus its prototype, though none of its defects, in the agrarian law of the Hebrews? Many of the Athenian laws in relation to the descent of property, and the prohibited degrees of relationship in marriage, seem to have been transcribed by Solon from the laws of Moses. Sir Matthew Hale, in his History of the Common Law of England affirms, “that among the Grecians, the laws of descents resemble those of the Jews.”

It will be universally conceded that the Roman or Civil Law as collected and digested by the order of Justinian, has exerted a powerful influence even on the institutions of modern times. Nor is it to be supposed that this intelligent people, who had long suffered under the evils of unwritten laws, when they turned their attention to the formation of a more certain and permanent code, would not consult the existing laws of the wisest nations. Both ancient and modern writers of Roman history, therefore affirm, that the individuals commissioned by the senate and tribunes to form the Twelve Tables, were directed to examine the laws of Athens and the Grecian cities. So that the Roman law must have been not a little indebted to the Mosaic.

Sir Matthew Hale remarks, “that among the many preferences which the laws of England have above others, the two principal ones are, the hereditary transmission of property, and the trial by jury.” And who does not see that these originated with the Jews? By the law of Moses, the succession, in the descending line, was all to the sons, except that the oldest son had a double portion. If the son died in his father’s lifetime, the grandson succeeded to the portion of his father. Daughters had no inheritance so long as there were sons, or descendants of sons. Where the father left only daughters and no sons, the daughters succeeded equally. And was there nothing in the administration of penal justice among the Hebrews, that suggested at least the trial by jury? I mean the publicity of their trials in the gates of the city, where their judges, though elders and Levites, were taken from the general mass of the citizens. Sir Matthew Hale, in the work to which reference has already been made, has another remark in relation to the influence which the Bible generally has exerted upon the laws of England. In speaking of the difficulties of ascertaining the origin of the common law, among the rest he enumerates the “growth of Christianity in the kingdom, introducing some new laws, or abrogating some old ones, that seemed less consistent with Christian doctrines.” A portion of the common law as it now stands was first collected by Alfred the Great 5 and it is asserted by Sismondi, in his History of the Fall of the Roman Empire, that when this prince “caused a republication of the Saxon laws, he inserted several laws taken from the Judaical ritual into his statutes, as if to give new strength and cogency to the principles of morality.” And hence it is no uncommon thing in the early English reporters to find frequent references to the Mosaic law. Sismondi also states that one of the first acts of the clergy under Pepin and Charlemagne of France, was to introduce into the legislation of the Franks, several of the Mosaic laws found in the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus.

I need not say, that the entire code of civil and judicial statutes throughout New England, as well as throughout those states first settled by the descendants of New England, shows nothing more distinctly than that its framers were familiar with the Bible, and substantially adopted “the judicial laws of God, as they were delivered by Moses, as binding and a rule to all their courts V And why should not this sacred book, so full of the counsels of wisdom, and itself a law to man, exert a paramount influence on all human laws, wherever it is known and revered? “The Scripture,” says the judicious Hooker, “is fraught even with the laws of nature, insomuch that Gratian, defining natural right termeth it that which the books of the law and the gospel do contain. Neither is it vain that the Scripture aboundeth with so great store of laws of this kind 5 for they are such as we of ourselves could not easily have found out; and then the benefit is not small to have them readily set down to our hands 5 or if they be so clear and manifest, that no man endued with reason can lightly be ignorant of them, yet the Spirit, as it were, borrowing them from the school of nature, and applying them, is not without most singular use and profit for men’s instruction.”

It was from God himself that one nation, and one only immediately received their laws. And they are worthy to be regarded as the model for all succeeding ages. There is no comparison between the laws of this people and the laws of other ancient nations, except as the latter were borrowed from the institutions of Moses. The learned Michaelis, who was professor of law in the university of Gottengen, remarks, “that a man who considers laws philosophically, who would survey them with the eye of a Montesquieu, would never overlook the laws of Moses.” Goguet, in his elaborate and learned treatise on the Origin of Laws observes, that “the more we meditate on the laws of Moses, the more we shall perceive their wisdom and inspiration. They alone have the inestimable advantage never to have undergone any of the revolutions common to all human laws, which have always demanded frequent amendments; sometimes changes; sometimes additions 5 sometimes the retrenching of superfluities. There has been nothing changed, nothing added, nothing retrenched from the laws of Moses for above three thousand years.” Milman, in his history of the Jews, remarks, that “the Hebrew lawgiver has exercised a more extensive and permanent influence over the destinies of mankind, than any other individual in the annals of the world.” It was the opinion of that distinguished statesman and jurist, the late Fisher Ames, dare et venerabile nomen, that “no man could be a sound lawyer who was not well read in the laws of Moses.”

This venerable code claims our reverence, if it were for nothing but its high antiquity. But it has higher claims. Taken as a whole, it contains more sublime truths, and maxims more essentially connected with the well-being of our race, than all the profane writers of antiquity could furnish. They were perfect at their formation j uniting all that is authoritative in obligation, with all that is benevolent in their tendency, and not less conducive to the glory of the lawgiver, than to the happiness of his subjects. That bold personification of law in the abstract made by Hooker, may with strong propriety be applied to the system of legislation revealed in the Bible. “Of law there can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do her homage 5 the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempt from her power. Both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in a different sort and name, yet all with one uniform consent, admire her as the mother of their peace and joy.”

A portion of this law was designed to be authoritatively binding on the Jews alone 5 another portion of it is equally binding on us, and “though heaven and earth pass away, shall never pass away.” — “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself.” The nature and extent of this law, and our everlasting responsibilities to it as the creatures of God, as intelhgent and responsible agents, it becomes us, my young friends gravely to investigate, both as it relates to our destiny in this world and that which is to come. We are not, like the vegetative and animal creation, passive subjects, submitting to the imperative law of our nature, but active, accountable existences, voluntarily obeying or refusing to obey. All the features of this law we know are “holy, just, and good.” Its very penalty is but the sterner accent of love warning us of our danger. Its penalty and precept are both written upon the conscience 5 and wo be to the transgressor, who, because it is no longer the rule of his justification before God, disregards it as the rule of his duty.