rld, so hath our law passed
through all the world also. So that if any one will but reflect on his
own country, and his own family, he will have reason to give credit to
what I say. It is therefore but just, either to condemn all mankind
of indulging a wicked disposition, when they have been so desirous of
imitating laws that are to them foreign and evil in themselves, rather
than following laws of their own that are of a better character, or else
our accusers must leave off their spite against us. Nor are we guilty of
any envious behavior towards them, when we honor our own legislator, and
believe what he, by his prophetic authority, hath taught us concerning
God. For though we should not be able ourselves to understand the
excellency of our own laws, yet would the great multitude of those that
desire to imitate them, justify us, in greatly valuing ourselves upon
them.

41. But as for the [distinct] political laws by which we are governed, I
have delivered them accurately in my books of Antiquities; and have
only mentioned them now, so far as was necessary to my present purpose,
without proposing to myself either to blame the laws of other nations,
or to make an encomium upon our own; but in order to convict those
that have written about us unjustly, and in an impudent affectation of
disguising the truth. And now I think I have sufficiently completed
what I proposed in writing these books. For whereas our accusers have
pretended that our nation are a people of very late original, I have
demonstrated that they are exceeding ancient; for I have produced as
witnesses thereto many ancient writers, who have made mention of us
in their books, while they had said that no such writer had so done.
Moreover, they had said that we were sprung from the Egyptians, while I
have proved that we came from another country into Egypt: while they had
told lies of us, as if we were expelled thence on account of diseases
on our bodies, it has appeared, on the contrary, that we returned to
our country by our own choice, and with sound and strong bodies. Those
accusers reproached our legislator as a vile fellow; whereas God in old
time bare witness to his virtuous conduct; and since that testimony of
God, time itself hath been discovered to have borne witness to the same
thing.

42. As to the laws themselves, more words are unnecessary, for they are
visible in their own nature, and appear to teach not impiety, but the
truest piety in the wo