rmine; for it is time that we come to that
point. [19] Now there are innumerable differences in the particular
customs and laws that are among all mankind, which a man may briefly
reduce under the following heads: Some legislators have permitted their
governments to be under monarchies, others put them under oligarchies,
and others under a republican form; but our legislator had no regard
to any of these forms, but he ordained our government to be what, by a
strained expression, may be termed a Theocracy, [20] by ascribing the
authority and the power to God, and by persuading all the people to have
a regard to him, as the author of all the good things that were enjoyed
either in common by all mankind, or by each one in particular, and of
all that they themselves obtained by praying to him in their greatest
difficulties. He informed them that it was impossible to escape God's
observation, even in any of our outward actions, or in any of our
inward thoughts. Moreover, he represented God as unbegotten, [21] and
immutable, through all eternity, superior to all mortal conceptions in
pulchritude; and, though known to us by his power, yet unknown to us as
to his essence. I do not now explain how these notions of God are the
sentiments of the wisest among the Grecians, and how they were taught
them upon the principles that he afforded them. However, they testify,
with great assurance, that these notions are just, and agreeable to the
nature of God, and to his majesty; for Pythagoras, and Anaxagoras, and
Plato, and the Stoic philosophers that succeeded them, and almost all
the rest, are of the same sentiments, and had the same notions of the
nature of God; yet durst not these men disclose those true notions to
more than a few, because the body of the people were prejudiced with
other opinions beforehand. But our legislator, who made his actions
agree to his laws, did not only prevail with those that were his
contemporaries to agree with these his notions, but so firmly imprinted
this faith in God upon all their posterity, that it never could be
removed. The reason why the constitution of this legislation was ever
better directed to the utility of all than other legislations were, is
this, that Moses did not make religion a part of virtue, but he saw and
he ordained other virtues to be parts of religion; I mean justice, and
fortitude, and temperance, and a universal agreement of the members of
the community with one another; for al