"whom he ordered to be destroyed without mercy. "From whence it follows, that all the reasons I have "employed, in the first part of this commentary, prove nothing, because they prove too much; namely, "that the literal sense of the Law of Moses, as far as relates to the punishment of opinions, would be impious and abominable. Therefore, since GOD could, without violating the eternal order of things, "command the Jews to put false prophets to death, "it follows, evidently, that he could, under the Gos"pel also, command orthodox believers to inflict the same punishment upon heretics.

66

"I am not, if I rightly know myself, of that temper "of mind, so thoroughly corrupted by the contagion "of Controversy, as to treat this objection with an "air of haughtiness and contempt; as is the way "when men find themselves incapable of answering to the purpose. I ingenuously own the objection to be strong; and that it seems to be a mark of "GOD's sovereign pleasure, that we should not arrive "at certainty in any thing, seeing he hath given ex

86

ceptions in his holy word to almost all the common "notices of reason. Nay, I know some who have no greater difficulties to hinder their believing that GOD was the author of the Laws of Moses, and of all "those Revelations that occasioned so much slaughter "and devastation, than this very matter of into"lerance, so contrary to our clearest ideas of natural "equity*.

Whether Mr. Bayle himself was one of these backward believers, as by some of his expressions he gives us reason to suspect, is not material. That he

* Voions presentement cette iv. objection. On la peut tirer de ce que la loi du Moïse, &c. Commentaire Philosophique, Part ii. Chap, 4.

dwelt

dwelt with pleasure on this circumstance, as favouring his beloved scepticism, is too evident. But sure he went a little too far when he said, GOD's word contains exceptions to almost all the common notices of reason*. I hope to shew, before I have done with Infidelity, that it contains exceptions to none. Our excellent countryman Mr. LOCKE, who wrote about this time on the same subject, and with that force and precision which is the character of all his writings, was more reasonable and modest in his account of this matter. As to the case (says he) of the Israelites in the Jewish Commonwealth, who being initiated into the Mosaical rites, and made citizens of the commonwealth, did afterwards apostatize from the worship of the GOD of Israel; these were proceeded against as traitors and rebels, guilty of no less than high treason. For the commonwealth of the Jews, different, in that, from all others, was an absolute THEOCRACY; nor was there, nor could there be, any difference between the Commonwealth and the Church. The Laws established there concerning the worship of the one invisible Deity were the civil Laws of that people, and a part of their political Government, in which GOD himself was the Legislator. This he said; but it being all he said, I shall endeavour to support his solution by such other reasoning as occurs to me. It will be necessary then to observe, that GOD, in his infinite wisdom, was pleased to stand in two arbitrary relations towards the Jewish People, besides that natural one, in which he stood towards them and the rest of mankind in common. The first was that of a tutelary Deity, gentilitial and local; the GOD of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,

par les exceptions qu'il a mise dans sa parole à presque toutes les notions communes de la raison.

Letter concerning Toleration, p. 37. Ed. 1689.

who

who was to bring their posterity into the land of Canaan, and to protect them there, as his peculiar People. The second was that of supreme Magistrate and Lawgiver. And in both these relations he was pleased to refer it to the people's free choice, whether or no they would receive him for their GOD and KING. For a tutelary Deity was supposed by the Ancients to be as much matter of election as a civil Magistrate. The People, therefore, thus solemnly accepting him, these necessary consequences followed from the HOREB

CONTRACT.

I. First, that as the national GOD and civil Magistrate of the Jews centered in one and the same object, their civil Policy and Religion must be intimately united and incorporated*; consequently, their religion had, and very reasonably, A PUBLIC PART, whose subject was the Society as such: though this part, in the national pagan Religions, which had it likewise, was extremely absurd, as hath been shewn more at large in the first volume †.

II. Secondly, as the two Societies were thoroughly incorporated, they could not be distinguished; but must stand or fall together. Consequently the direction of all their civil Laws must be for the equal preservation of both. Therefore, as the renouncing him for King was the throwing him off as God; and as the renouncing him for God was the throwing him off as King; idolatry, which was the rejecting him as GOD, was properly the crimen læsæ majestatis; and so justly punishable by the civil Laws. But there was

* Such a kind of union and incorporation was most absurdly affected by MAHOMET, in imitation of the Jewish Economy; whence, as might be expected, it appears that neither he nor his assistants understood any thing of its true nature.

See Divine Legation, B. II. Sect. 1. pp. 309, 310.

this manifest difference in these two cases, as to the effects. The renouncing GoD as civil Magistrate might be remedied without a total dissolution of the Constitution; not so, the renouncing him as tutelary GOD: because, though he might, and did * appoint a deputy, in his office of KING, amongst the Jewish tribes; yet he would have no substitute, as God, amongst the pagan Deities. Therefore, in necessity as well as of right, idolatry was punishable by the civil Laws of a THEOCRACY; it being the greatest crime that could be committed against the State, as tending, by unavoidable consequence, to dissolve the Constitution. For the one GOD being the supreme Magistrate, it subsisted in the worship of that GOD alone. Idolatry, therefore, as the renunciation of one GOD alone, was in a strict philosophic, as well as legal sense, the crime of lese-majesty. Let us observe farther, that as, by such INCORPORATION, religious matters came under civil consideration, so likewise civil matters came under the religious. This is what Josephus would say, where, in his second book against Apion, speaking of the Jewish Theocracy, he tells us that Moses did not make Religion a part of Virtue, but Virtue a part of Religion. The meaning is, that, as in all human Societies, obedience to the Law is moral Virtue; under a THEOCRACY, it is Religion.

III. The punishment of Idolatry, by Law, had this farther circumstance of equity, that it was punishing * The kings of Israel and Judah being, as we shall shew, indeed no other.

† Αἴτιον δ ̓ ὅτι καὶ τῷ τρόπῳ τῆς νομοθεσίας πρὸς τὸ χρήσιμον πάντων ἀεὶ πολὺ διήνεΓκεν· ἐ γὰρ μέρος τῆς ἀρετῆς ἐποίησε τὴν ἐυσές βειαν, ἀλλὰ ταύτης τὰ μέρη τἄλλα συνεῖδε και καλέςησε λέγω δὲ τὴν δικαιοσύνην, τὴν καρτερίαν, την σωφροσύνην, τὴν τῶν πολιτῶν πρὸς ἀλλήλες ἐν ἅπασι συμφωνίαν. p. 483. Har. Ed.

the

the rebellion of those who had chosen the Government under which they lived, when freely proposed to them. Hence, in the Law against idolatry, the crime is, with great propriety, called the TRANSGRESSION OF THE COVENANT*.

Thus we see, the Law in question stands clear of the cavils of Infidels, and the abuse of Intolerants †. But to this, the defender of the common rights of subjects may be apt to object, that apt to object, that "these penal laws "were unjust, because no contract to give up the rights "of conscience can be binding."

To which I reply, with a plain and decisive fact, That none of all the idolatrous worship the Jews ever fell into, from the time of giving the Law to the total dissolution of the Republic, was MATTER OF CONSCIENCE; but always of convenience; such as procuring some temporal good, which they wantonly affected, or averting some temporal evil, which they servilely feared. The truth of which appears from hence, that, in the midst of all their idolatries, the GOD of their Fathers, as we shall see, was ever owned to be the Creator and first Cause of all things; and the Religion taught by Moses, to be a Revelation from heaven.

But it may be asked, What if their commission of idolatry had, at any time, proved matter of conscience; i.e. such an action as they thought they were obliged in duty to perform?

I reply, the question would have weight, had the Law in dispute been of human institution. But as it was given by GoD, who knows the future equally with the past and present, and saw the case would not happen, it is altogether impertinent. The Question,

* Deut. xvii. 2.

+ See note [C] at the end of this Book.

indeed,