required back again. No one is to touch another's goods. He that lends money must not demand usury for its loan. These and many more of the like sort are the rules that unite us in the bands of society one with another. 29. It will be also worth our while to see what equity our legislator would have us exercise in our intercourse with strangers; for it will thence appear, that he made the best provision he possibly could, both that we should not dissolve our own constitution, nor show any envious mind towards those that would cultivate a friendship with us. Accordingly, our legislator admits all those that have a mind to observe our laws so to do, and this after a friendly manner, as esteeming that a true union which not only extends to our own stock, but to those that would live after the same manner with us: yet does he not allow those that come to us by accident only to be admitted into communion with us. 30. However, there are other things which our legislator ordained for us beforehand, which of necessity we ought to do in common to all men; as to afford fire, and water, and food to such as want it; to show them the roads; nor to let any one lie unburied. He also would have us treat those that are esteemed our enemies with moderation; for he doth not allow us to set their country on fire, nor permit us to cut down those trees that bear fruit; nay, farther, he forbids us to spoil those that have been slain in war. He hath also provided for such as are taken captive, that they may not be injured, and especially that the women may not be abused. Indeed, he hath taught us gentleness and humanity so effectually, that he hath not despised the care of brute beasts, by permitting no other than a regular use of them, and forbidding any other; and if any of them come to our houses, like supplicants, we are forbidden to slay them: nor may we kill the dams, together with their young ones; but we are obliged, even in an enemy's country, to spare and not kill those creatures that labour for mankind. hath our lawgiver contrived to teach us an equitable conduct every way, by using us to such laws as instruct us therein; while at the same time he hath ordained, that such as break these laws should be punished, without the allowance of any excuse whatsoever. Thus 31. Now the greatest part of offences with us are capital; as if any one be guilty of adultery; if any one force a virgin; if any one be so impudent as to attempt sodomy with a male, or if, upon another's making an attempt upon him, he submits to be so used. There is also a law for slaves of the like nature that can never be avoided. Moreover, if any one cheats another in measures or weights, or makes a knavish bargain and sale in order to cheat another; if any one steals what be longs to another, and takes what he never deposited, all these have punishments allotted them; not so much as are met with among other nations, but more severe ones. And as for attempts of unjust behaviour toward parents, or for impiety against God, though they be not actually accomplished, the offenders are destroyed immediately. However, the reward for such as live exactly according to the laws is not silver nor gold; it is not a garland of olive branches or of smallage, nor any such public sign of commendation; but every good man hath his own conscience bearing witness to himself; and by virtue of our legislator's prophetic spirit, and of the firm security God himself affords such a one, he believes that God hath made this grant to those that observe these laws, even though they be obliged readily to die for them, that they shall come into being again, and at a certain revolution of things shall receive a better life than they had enjoyed before. Nor would I venture to write thus at this time, were it not well known to all by our actions, that many of our people have many a time bravely resolved to endure any sufferings rather than speak one word against our law. 32. Nay, indeed, in case it had so fallen out, that our nation had not been so thoroughly known among all men as they are, and our voluntary submission to our laws had not been so open and manifest as it is; but that somebody had pretended to have written these laws himself, and had read them to the Greeks, or had pretended that he had met with men out of the limits of the known world, that had such reverent notions of God, and had continued a long time in the firm observance of such laws as ours, I cannot but suppose that all men would admire them, on a reflection upon the frequent changes they had therein been themselves subject to; and this while those that have attempted to write somewhat of the same kind for politic government and for laws are accused as composing monstrous things, and are said to have undertaken an impossible task upon them. And here I will say nothing of those other philosophers who have undertaken any thing of this nature in their writings. But even Plato himself, who is so admired by the Greeks on account of that gravity in his manners, and force in his words, and that ability he had to persuade men beyond all other philosophers, is little better than laughed at, and exposed to ridicule on that account, by those that pretend to sagacity in political affairs; although he that shall diligently peruse his writings will find his precepts to be somewhat gentle, and pretty near to the customs of the generality of mankind. Nay, Plato himself confesseth, that it is not safe to publish the true notion concerning God among the ignorant multitude. Yet do some men look upon Plato's discourses as no better than certain idle words set off with great arti 1 fice. However, they admire Lycurgus as the principal lawgiver; and all men celebrate Sparta for having continued in the firm observance of his laws for a very long time. So far, then, we have gained that it is to be confessed a mark of virtue to submit to laws*. But then, let such as admire this in the Lacedemonians compare that duration of theirs with more than two thousand years which our political government hath continued; and let them farther consider, that though the Lacedemonians did seem to observe their laws exactly, while they enjoyed their liberty, yet that when they underwent a change in their fortune they forgot almost all those laws; while we having been under ten thousand changes in our fortune, by the changes that happened among the kings of Asia, we have never betrayed our laws under the most pressing distresses we have been in, nor have we neglected them either out of sloth or for a livelihood+. Nay, if any one will consider it, the difficulties and labours laid upon us have been greater than what appears to have been borne by the Lacedemonian fortitude, while they neither ploughed their land nor exercised any trades, but lived in their own city, free from all such pains-taking, in the enjoyment of plenty, and using such exercises as might improve their bodies; while they made use of other men as their servants for all the necessaries of life, and had their food prepared for them by the others: and these good and humane actions they do for no other purpose but this, that by their actions and their sufferings they may be able to conquer all those against whom they make war. I need not add this, that they have not been fully able to observe their laws; for not only a few single persons, but multitudes of them, have in heaps neglected those laws, and have delivered themselves together with their arms, into the hands of their enemies. 33. Now, as for ourselves, I venture to say, that no one can tell of so many, nay, not more than one or two, that have betrayed our laws; no, not out of fear of death itself: I do not mean such an easy death as happens in battles, but that which comes with bodily torments, and seems to be the severest kind of death of all others. Now I think those that have conquered us have put us to such deaths, not out of their hatred to us when they had subdued us, but rather out of their desire to see a surprising sight, which is this, whether there be such men in the world who believe that no evil is to them so great as to be com It may not be amiss to set down here a very remarkable testimony of the great philosopher Cicero, as to the preference of laws to philosophy. "I will," says he," boldly declare my opinion, though the whole world be offended at it. I prefer this little book of the Twelve Tables alone to all the volumes of the philosophers. I find it to be not only of more weight, but also much more useful." De Oratore. + Or, we have observed our times of rest and sorts of food allowed us [during those distresses]. pelled to do or to speak any thing contrary to their own laws! Nor ought men to wonder at us, if we are more courageous in dying for our laws than all other men are; for other men do not easily submit to the easier things in which we are instituted; I mean working with our hands and eating but little, and being contented to eat and drink not at random, or at every one's pleasure, or being under inviolable rules in lying with our wives, in magnificent furniture, and again in the observation of our times of rest; while those that can use their swords in war, and can put their enemies to flight when they attack them, cannot bear to submit to such laws about their way of living: whereas our being accustomed willingly to submit to laws in these instances, renders us fit to show our fortitude upon other occasions also. 34. Yet do the Lysimachi and the Molones, and some other writers (unskilful sophists as they are), and the deceivers of young men, reproach us as the vilest of all mankind. Now I have no mind to make an inquiry into the laws of other nations; for the custom of our country is to keep our own laws, but not to bring accusations against the laws of others. And, indeed, our legislator hath expressly forbidden us to laugh at and revile those that are esteemed gods by other people *, on account of the very name of God ascribed to them. But since our antagonists think to run us down upon the comparison of their religion and ours, it is not possible to keep silence here, especially while what I shall s to confute these men will not be now first said, but hath been already said by many, and these of the highest reputation also: for who is there among those that have been admired among the Greeks for wisdom, who hath not greatly blamed both the most famous poets, and most celebrated legislators for spreading such notions originally among the body of the people concerning the gods? such as these, that they may be allowed to be as numerous as they have a mind to have them; that they are begotten one by another, and that after all the kinds of generation you can imagine. They also distinguish them in their places and ways of living, as they would distinguish several sorts of animals: as some to be under the earth; as some to be in the sea; and the ancientest of them all to be bound in hell: and for those to whom they have allotted heaven, they have set over them one, who in title is their father, but in his actions a tyrant and a lord; whence it came to pass that his wife, and brother, and daughter (which daughter he brought forth from his own head), made a conspiracy against him to seize upon him and confine him, as he had himself seized upon and confined his own father before. 35. And justly have the wisest men thought these notions de*See Antiq. B. iv. ch. viii. sect. 10, and its note. served severe rebukes; they also laugh at them for determining that we ought to believe some of the gods to be beardless and young, and others of them to be old, and to have beards accordingly that some are set to trades: that one god is a smith, and another goddess is a weaver; that one god is a warrior, and fights with men that some of them are harpers, or delight in archery; and, besides, that mutual seditions arise among them, and that they quarrel about men, and this so far that they not only lay hands upon one another, but that they are wounded by men, and lament, and take on for such their afflictions. But what is the grossest of all in point of lasciviousness, are those unbounded lusts ascribed to almost all of them and their amours; which how can it be other than a most absurd supposal, especially when it reaches to the male gods, and to the female goddesses also? Moreover, the chief of all their gods, and their first father himself, overlooks those goddesses whom he hath deluded and begotten with child, and suffers them to be kept in prison or drowned in the sea. He is also so bound up by fate, that he cannot save his own offspring, nor can he bear their deaths without shedding of tears. These are fine things indeed! as are the rest that follow. Adulteries truly are so impudently looked on in heaven by the gods, that some of them have confessed they envied those that were bound in the very act. And why should they not do so, when the eldest of them, who is their king also, hath not been able to restrain himself in the violence of his lust from lying with his wife so long as they might get into their bedchamber? Now some of the gods are servants to men, and will sometimes be builders for a reward and sometimes will be shepherds; while others of them, like malefactors, are bound in a prison of brass. And what sober person is there who would not be provoked at such stories, and rebuke those that forged them, and condemn the great silliness of those that admit them for true? Nay, others there are that have advanced a certain timorousness and fear, as also madness and fraud, and any other of the vilest passions into the nature and form of gods, and have persuaded whole cities to offer sacrifice to the better sort of them; on which account they have been absolutely forced to esteem some gods as the givers of good things, and to call others of them averters of evil. They also endeavour to move them, as they would the vilest of men, by gifts and presents, as looking for nothing else than to receive some great mischief from them unless they pay them such wages. 36. Wherefore it deserves our inquiry, what should be the occasion of this unjust management and of these scandals about the Deity? And truly I suppose it to be derived from the imperfect knowledge the heathen legislators had at first of the true |