Page images
PDF
EPUB

jurisdiction, they were early united into one great council for the common welfare; for Moses was ordered to lay his proposals before all the elders of Israel, that is, before a general council of the whole nation. It is also remarkable, that when the Hebrews went out of Egypt, they departed, not like a tumultuous mob, but as a regular army under proper commanders, and each host ranged under its own standard; which proves that they had been previously habituated to order and discipline, both civil and military, and also renders it probable that the princes of tribes had been acknowledged as general officers of their forces, and the heads of families as subordinate officers. This very early existence of civil and military rule among the Hebrews will account for that kind and degree of order, authority and dignity, which afterwards subsisted among them. In these antient usages we perceive the rude beginnings of their national senate.

While the people were encamped in the wilderness, Jethro, father-in-law to Moses, on a visit to his camp, advised him to choose out of all the tribes "able and true men, fearers of God, and haters of covetousness," and to appoint them assistant or rather subordinate judges. These judges seem to have been so many justices of peace, and to have constituted inferior courts of judicature in the several tribes and cities of Israel. By these magistrates local and smaller causes were determined; while matters of great or general importance were decided by Moses. Lord Bacon observes that this judiciary arrangement is considerably illustrated by the regular gradation of magistrates, introduced by king Alfred in the several counties and corporations of England. It does not however appear that this early arrangement, adopted by the advice of Jethro, was intended to create a na

tional senate, as many Jewish writers, and after them Grotius, Selden, and others have supposed; but only to provide for the more general and prompt administration of justice in every part of the nation. Sometime after this appointment, Moses, afflicted by the uneasy and murmuring spirit of the people, and the anger of Jehovah enkindled by it, complains that he was not able to bear the whole burden of the people alone; upon which, by divine direction seventy men from among the elders of Israel were selected by Moses, confirmed by the people, and then supernaturally qualified by God, to be a standing council to the chief magistrate, to relieve and assist him in the arduous business of governing the nation. As this appointment grew out of the public exigences, so its direct object was to divide the burden of the national administration between Moses and a constant senate or privy council. Here then we behold the full birth and prominent features of an intermediate body, intended on the one hand to repress popular sedi. tion, and on the other, to strengthen, and if needful, to control the supreme executive power.

If it be asked, whether the national senate consisted of these seventy elders only; we answer, that many Jewish authors, from a fond desire of magnifying their famous sanhedrim or council of seventy, have ascribed to this body such exclusive or paramount dignity, as totally contradicts many passages of Old Testament history. From these passages it appears that all the princes of the tribes and chief heads of families, who possessed authority before the institution of the sanhedrim, still continued to sit and to act in the general council. may therefore conceive of the seventy elders as a select and smaller council, to assist the chief magistrate in the

H

We

common business of the nation. But on extraordinary and more momentous occasions all the princes of Israel united with these elders in one national council. There

is something analagous to this in several of the American states, and especially in some of the governments of Europe. Thus in Great Britain the king has a small privy council, who constantly assist him in the ordinary duties of his office. But when high national concerns require the meeting of all the peers, as well as the commons of the realm, those select counsellors mingle with, and become in a sense lost in the grand senate of the nation. So in France, before its late revolution, the king appointed a number of men, distinguished by their legal and political abilities, as a standing court of justice and advice. But on very great occasions he summoned to this court all the peers of the kingdom, each of whom had an equal vote in the assembly; and he directed his standing counsellors, who were called masters of parliament, to assist this body with their best advice. These modern examples may throw much light on our present subject.

It has been much disputed whether this Hebrew council of seventy was a perpetual, or only a temporary institution. The Jewish Rabbies, though they allow that the session of this court was sometimes discontinued under the government of their kings, yet insist that it was intended to subsist, and actually flourished, with small interruptions, from the time of Moses to the end of their republic. The truth seems to be, that though the Hebrews had a permanent senate, composed of the heads of the tribes, yet the appointment of seventy select counsellors was designed for the temporary purpose of assisting Moses, and his successor Joshua during the unset

tled state of the Israelites; and that the sanhedrim, which made such a figure in the latter periods of their history, and which then concentrated their national dignity and power, was set up in the time of the Maccabees, between two and three centuries before Christ; that it grew up from feeble beginnings to high degrees of authority. Agreeably, in the time of our Saviour and his apostles this court, which the New Testament writers call the council, was the grand judicatory of the nation, before whose tribunal Jesus himself was arraigned and condemned. This council extended its jurisdiction to all persons and things; it exercised the power of life and death; its decisions were final; it was made a capital offence, not only to counteract, but even to controvert its decrees.

We now proceed to the third department of the Hebrew government, viz. that of presiding magistrate. As the popular branch of this constitution secured the liberties of the people; as the senate of elders tempered the spirit, and guarded the enjoyment of liberty by wise and wholesome regulations; so an efficient executive was equally necessary to add life, vigor, and protection to the whole. Without this, liberty is licentious and despotic anarchy; and the wisest laws are but a dead letter. The most free and enlightened nations have found it expedient to lodge the executive power in one hand, or at least in a few, for the sake of greater responsibility, dispatch, union, and energy. The best forms of government have set up one chief commander of their forces, and one or a few principal magistrates, to preside in the execution of the laws. "Thus the Lacedemonians have their kings, the Athenians their archons, the Ro

mans their consuls, and the Hebrews their judges ;" and thus the admired constitutions of America have their governors and presidents. In antient governments the name king often implied no more authority than that of consul; and there is one instance in the present age, in which the latter title covers as much power, as perhaps was ever annexed to the most pompous appellation. Accordingly, among the antient Jews king and judge were convertible terms. Thus Moses is called "king of Jeshurun" or Israel, because under God, their real Sovereign, he possessed the supreme executive power. But the style of judge is the more usual epithet to describe this officer under the original form of the Hebrew government. Let us then inquire into the import of this office, as instituted by God, and virtuously exercised by Moses and Joshua. From the summary account of it in the scripture history we learn that this high function was not to be hereditary. The upright policy of Moses, far from seeking to perpetuate the chief magistracy in his own family, devoutly repaired to God for the appointment of his successor. This wise and disinterested magistrate spurned the idea of any hereditary claim, even in favor of his own posterity, as equally absurd, base, and pernicious. He saw that great qualities of understanding and heart were the only titles to an office so important. Accordingly, Jehovah, by the voice of his oracle, and in answer to the request of his servant, appoints Joshua, a man of another family, and even of another tribe, to be his successor. What an excellent trait does this circumstance hold up both in the Hebrew government, and in the character of its first minister! It further appears that the authority of the Hebrew chief ma

« PreviousContinue »