Page images
PDF
EPUB

virtue, freedom, and union, in the state, and secure to every rank

in society their just and natural rights. This, therefore, shall be the subject of our next inquiry.

LECTURE IV.

The political principles of the Jewish Law. Importance of the mode in which property is distributed in a state-Agrarian Law of Lycurgus, &c.-Defects of the Spartan constitution in this point-Agrarian Law among the Jews-how guarded-promoted agriculture and attachment to rural life. Jewish nobility and gentry. Jewish yeomanry sufficient for defensive war-Offensive wars effectually discouraged by the Jewish constitution. Constitution of the tribe of Levi peculiar to the Jewish schemeIts great utility. Jewish Law guarded the rights and comforts of the very lowest classes of the stranger—the poor—the aged and infirm. Recapitulation.

66

NUMBERS, XXXiii. 50, 54.

"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Ye shall divide the land by lot for an inheritance among 'your families; to the more ye shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer ye shall give "the less inheritance: according to the tribes of your fathers ye shall inherit."

As the Scriptures ascribe not only the religious and moral part of the Jewish Law to a divine original, but also the civil code and political constitution of the Jewish government; which, it has been proved,* was a direct theocracy; it becomes necessary to examine how far this constitution was calculated to guard the freedom and union of the Jewish state, to secure to its subjects of every rank their just and natural rights, and to diffuse a universal spirit of industry, virtue, and peace. This, therefore, shall be the object of our inquiry in this Lecture; and if it leads me to reflections which shall at first appear rather historical and political, than theological and religious, yet the close connexion of the topic with the vindication of so important a part of Revelation, as that which describes the Jewish economy, will, I trust, plead my excuse.

The mode in which property is distributed has, perhaps, the chief influence in every state in determining the character and

VOL. II.

* Vide supra, p. 25, and the last Lecture.

L

effects of its constitution. Property carries with it authority and power. Where the lower classes are wholly destitute of it, they are generally dependent and servile; while those who monopolize it are too often arrogant and corrupt. If there exists no rank of citizens possessing moderate shares of it, with a secure tenure, there is little probability of finding any class of society exhibiting the purest virtues, the most useful industry, and the most independent spirit. Nor does any circumstance tend to inflame domestic feuds, or expose to foreign violence, more than an extremely unequal distribution or uncertain tenure of property.

In confirmation of these observations, I need only hint at the discord and misery which the want or the violation of an Agrarian Law produced in Rome, and the praise which has been ever given to the Agrarian Law of Lycurgus. Yet, notwithstanding the comparative superiority of the Spartan institutions in this particular, they were certainly attended with considerable defects. The division of lands was there guarded, by abolishing the use of money,* and discountenancing all commerce; regulations forced and unnatural, tending to retard all improvement, and fix the nation to that state of semi-barbarism in which the Legislator found it. Further, in order to remove the temptations to accumulate wealth, by banishing the enjoyments which usually attend it, as well as to promote the hardihood of his people, the Spartan legislator established public tables, where all the citizens fed in common, on homely food; and he wrested children from the mild superintendence of parental care, and placed them under a system of public education and rigorous discipline. These regulations produced, undoubtedly, the effect he designed; they formed a hardy multitude of citizens, who regarded the state as their common parent, and considered each other as equals. But they also tended to weaken all domestic attachments and domestic virtues-parental fondness and authority, filial love and obedience, fraternal affection, and all the amiable charities of domestic life, could have little place in such a system. But this was not yet the worst. What might have been most reasonably expected as a necessary effect of an Agrarian Law, seems to be a race of laborious peasantry, employed

* Vide Plutarch in Lycurgus, and Polybius, Lib. VI. Vide also Montague on the Rise and Fall of the ancient Republics, ch. i.

in agriculture, and possessing all that simplicity, industry, and peaceable turn of mind, which such a class of men naturally acquire. But no such existed at Sparta. The citizens who were the proprietors of the soil, disdaining agriculture, committed the care of their lands to their slaves; they were themselves excluded from commerce, they were ignorant of letters, they possessed no amusement or occupation but their public meetings and their military exercises. Unaccustomed to peaceful arts and industry, they were ambitious of no praise, but such as arms could acquire; and this circumstance gradually led to the neglect of their legislator's institutions, and the consequent destruction of their polity. In vain did Lycurgus, when he formed all the freemen into a national militia for the defence of the state, forbid all offensive wars and all distant conquests. A nation with whom war was the sole business and the ruling passion of their lives, were too ambitious and too fierce to submit to any such restraints, They rushed into offensive wars, they extended their dominions; money was thence introduced first for public, then for private use; luxury crept in, the Agrarian Law was violated, and the Spartan constitution overthrown.

I have thus particularly noticed the Spartan polity; because, in its great basis, the distribution of landed property, it approaches nearer than any other I know of, to the Hebrew government, which was founded on an equal Agrarian Law. For, when the Children of Israel were numbered, immediately before their entrance, into the promised land, and found (exclusive of the Levites) to exceed six hundred thousand men, the Lord said unto Moses, "Unto these the land shall be divided "for an inheritance, according to the number of names. Το "many thou shalt give the more inheritance, and to the few "thou shalt give the less inheritance; to every one shall his "inheritance be given according to those that were numbered of "him. Notwithstanding, the land shall be divided by lot: according to the names of the tribes of their fathers shall they "inherit."*

[ocr errors]

By this regulation, provision was made for the support of six hundred thousand yeomanry,† with from six to twenty-five * Numbers, xxvi. 53, &c.

+Numbers, xxvi. 51, and xxxiii. 54.

acres of land each.* This land they held independent of all temporal superiors, by direct tenure from the Lord Jehovah, their Sovereign, by whose power they were to acquire their territory and under whose protection only they could retain it. On this principle, the lands so distributed were unalienable : “The land shall not be sold for ever," says the Law, "for the "land is mine saith the Lord: ye are strangers and sojourners " with me."+

Thus the basis of the Hebrew constitution was an equal Agrarian Law. But this law was guarded by other provisions most wise and salutary. The accumulation of debt was prevented, first by prohibiting every Jew from accepting of interest from any of his fellow citizens; next, by establishing a regular release of all debts every seventh year; and finally, by ordaining that no lands could be alienated for ever, but must, on each year of jubilee, or seventh sabbatic year, revert to the families which originally possessed them. Thus, without absolutely depriving individuals of all temporary dominion over their landed property, it re-established, every fiftieth year, that original and equal distribution of it, which was the foundation of the national polity; and as the period of such reversion was fixed and regular, all parties had due notice of the terms on which they negotiated; there was no ground for public commotion or private complaint.

One part of the regulation respecting the release in the year of jubilee, deserves our notice: it did not extend to houses in cities; these, if not redeemed within one year after they were sold, were alienated for ever. This circumstance must have given property in the country || a decided preference above property in cities, and induced every Jew to reside on and improve his land, and employ his time in the care of flocks and agriculture, which, as they had been the occupation of those revered patriarchs from whom the Jews descended, were with them the

* Vide Lowman on the Hebrew Government, ch. iv.-Vide also Cunæus de Republica Hebræorum, cap. ii.; De Lege Agraria, et inæstimabili ejus Utilitate; and Ledeyker de Republica Hebræorum, Lib. V. cap. xi. xii. xiii.; and the Universal History, Vol. I. p. 617.

+ Lev. xxv. 23.

Ib. ver. 35, 36.; and see the entire chapter.

Ib. ver. 29 and 30.

||Vide Jew's Letters to Voltaire, Part III. Let. i. § 5, note.

« PreviousContinue »