In John Austin’s celebrated analysis of law, the first step is the proposition that a law is a command issued by a superior to a subject and enforced by a sanction or penalty. The laws of God with reference to the conduct of men, the laws of a private club or association of men with reference to the conduct of its members, and the laws of a political society, are all, according to Austin’s definition, laws properly so calle 1. The laws of nature are laws not properly so called. They are generalizations as to the uniform course of nature, and have no analogy to laws properly so called except in point of uniformity. Positive law, again, is distinguished from other laws, properly so called, as the command of the sovereign of an independent political community. A sovereign is a person, or a determinate body of persons, to whom the bulk of the community is habitually obedient. Every word in this definition has its precise meaning, which is developed by Austin with admirable clearness. The faculty “of untying knots” on which he prided himself is nowhere more conspicuously manifested than in the analysis which lays bare the real meaning of the common phrases used to describe the fundamental parts of society. It is not our purpose to examine the value of this analysis here, but simply to call attention to the assumption that in every society of men there is a determinate body (whether consisting of one individual, or a few or many individuals) whose commands the rest of the community obey. This sovereign body is what in more popular phraso is termed the Government of the country, and the varieties which may exist in its constitution are known as forms of government.

Mr Herbert Spencer, approaching the study of society under the influence of conceptions derived from the study of physical organisms, brings us to very much the same result. The union of men in society is itself an organic structure, having parts aud functions corresponding to the parts and functions of an animal or a plant. Mr Spencer pursues this analogy so fully and minutely as to leave the impression that he believes it to be something more thau an analogy,—that it is a general law from which true deductions regarding society may be drawn. The veins and arteries correspond to our railroads and highways; the nerves, communicating intelligence to the brain, are paralleled by the telegraph wires; the centralized action of society at the seat of government is the same thing as the regulative activity of the brain. Government is here represented by the regulative functions of a living organism, and forms of government are so many varieties in the structure. Austin, for the purposes of jurisprudence, finds it convenient to regard society as moulded by the will of a dominant body. Spencer exhibits the regulative parts of society as bound up with the rest in one organism. With both the existence of a government is necessary to the conception of society. In the one theory the element of command, in the other that of regulation, is conspicuous. If to these we add a third, that of simple agency, we shall have a tolerably complete view of the relations between Government and society. Besides commanding the conduct of individuals, besides regulating the relations of the various members of society, Government may be conceived of as merely the instrument of society. Where men are united in groups there arises from their union the necessity of action on behalf of the group. That part of society which attends to the business of the whole is the Government.

Two main lines of inquiry divide the subject. The firs’ relates to varieties in the structure of the governing body— forms of government. The second relates to the functions of the governing body, the sphere of government, the things which fall within the province of state action. In both lines we have to deal with the ascertained facts of the past history and present condition of human societies. In both we have also to notice the speculative opinions of political thinkers. Notwithstanding the apparent confusion it will probably be found more convenient not to separate the historical from the speculative treatment of the subject. "What is the best form of government?—is not quite the same question as What was the constitution of Athens or Rome? What are the proper limits of state interference ?—is not the same question as What are the functions of the state in France or England? And yet the same answer may often serve for both sets of questions. Ideal constitutions have a suspicious resemblance to the constitutions with which their authors are most familiar. The political speculations of Plato and of Cicero are based on the state systems of Greece and Italy. Cicero’s ideal code in the treatise De Legibus is simply an adaptation of the Twelve Tables. On the other hand, the form of political speculation is often determined by, and in turn determines, the practical politics of the time. The intimate connexion between speculation and practice in politics is strikingly illustrated in the period of controversy which culminated in the Revolution of 1688. The irreconcilable claims of crown and parliament threw the mind back on first principles. Never had theorists a better chance. Popular government and absolute government each sought to establish itself on a basis of reason and nature. Filmer founds kingly authority on the natural subjection of mankind and the lineal succession of the king to Adam, the first and divinely appointed head of mankind. Locke’s general theories of civil government were, in his own opinion, sufficient “to establish the throne of our great restorer or present king, William, to make good his title in the consent of the people, which, being the only one of all lawful governments, he has more fully and clearly than any prince in Christendom.” We all know how the political issue was decided. The practical was not more complete than the speculative victory. For two centuries the speculations invented to support the popular cause against absolutism have been the accepted commonplaces of Englishmen on the constitution of civil society. A more recent example may be given from modern politics. During the discussions which preceded the passing of the Reform Act of 1867, no question was more hotly disputed than that of the real nature of the franchise. Was it a right or was it a privilege? In form this is a scientific or, if we like, a metaphysical question But the answer to it depended on another question altogether—whether you wished the franchise to be extended to a larger class or not.

Origin of Government.— A preliminary question, formerly of vast theoretical importance, would be, What is the origin of government? How did government come into existence? As a question of historical “fact, it demands for its solution a knowledge of the whole past of the human race. It has been answered over and over again in times when historical knowledge could hardly be said to exist, and it has therefore been answered without any reference to history. The answers which have satisfied the minds of men may be distinguished broadly into three classes. The first class would comprehend the legendary accounts which nations have given in primitive times of their own forms of government. These are always attributed to the mind of a single lawgiver. The government of Sparta was the invention of Lycurgus. Solon, Moses, Numa, and Alfred in like manner shaped the government of their respective nations. There was no curiosity about the institutions of other nations,—about the origin of governments in general; and each nation was perfectly ready to accept the traditional voμoθeraι of any other.

The second may be called the logical or metaphysical account of the origin of government. It contained no overt reference to any particular form of government, whatever its covert references may have been. It answered the question, How government in general came into existence; and it answered it by a logical analysis of the elements of society. The phenomenon to be accounted for being government and laws, it abstracted government and laws, and contemplated mankind as existing without them. The characteristic feature of this kind of speculation is that it reflects how contemporary men would behave if all government were removed, and infers that men must have behaved so before government came into existence. Society without government resolves itself into a number of individuals each following his own aims, and therefore, in the days before government, each man followed his own aims. It is easy to see how this kind of reasoning should lead to very different views of the nature of the supposed original state. With Hobbes, it is a state of war, and government is the result of an agreement among men to keep the peace. With Locke, it is a state of liberty and equality,—it is not a state of war; it is governed by its own law,—the law of nature, which is the same thing as the law of reason. The state of nature is brought to an end by the voluntary agreement of individuals to surrender their natural liberty, and submit themselves to one supreme Government. In the words of Locke, “Men being by nature all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate and subjected to the political power of another without his own consent. The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community” (On Civil Government, c. viii.). Locke boldly defends his theory as founded on historical fact, and it is amusing to compare his demonstration of the baselessness of Filmer’s speculations with the scanty and doubtful examples which he accepts as the foundation of his own. But in general the various forms of the hypothesis eliminate the question of time altogether. The original contract from which government sprung is likewise the subsisting contract on which civil society continues to be based. The historical weakness of the theory was probably always recognized. Its logical inadequacy was conclusively demonstrated by Austin. But it still clings to speculations on the principles of government.

The “social compact” is the most famous of the metaphysical explanations of government. It has had the largest history, the widest influence, and the most complete development. To the same class belong the various forms of the theory that governments exist by divine appointment. Of all that has been written about the divine right of kings, a great deal must be set down to the mere flatteries of courtiers and ecclesiastics. But there remains a genuine belief that men are bound to obey their rulers because their rulers have been appointed by God. Like the social compact, the theory of divine appointment avoided the question of historical fact.

The application of the historical method to the phenomena of society has changed the aspect of the question and robbed it of its political interest. The student of the history of society has no formula to express the law by which government is born. All that he can do is to trace governmental forms through various stages of social development. The more complex and the larger the society, the more distinct is the separation between the governing part and the rest, and the more elaborate is the subdivision of functions in the government. The primitive type of ruler is king, judge, priest, and general. At the same time, his way of life differs little from that of his followers and subjects. The metaphysical theories were so far right in imputing greater equality of social conditions to more primitive times. Increase of bulk brings with it a more cofħplex social organization. War tends to develop the strength of the governmental organization; peace relaxes it. All societies of men exhibit the germs of government; but there would appear to be races of men so low that they cannot be said to live together in society at all. Recent investigations have illustrated very fully the importance of the family in primitive societies, and the belief in a common descent has much to do with the social cohesion of a tribe. The government of a tribe resembles the government of a household; the head of the family is the ruler. But we cannot affirm that political government has its origin in family government, or that there may not have been states of society in which government of some sort existed while the family did not.

I. Forms of Government. Three Standard Forms.— Political writers from the time of Aristotle have been singularly unanimous in their classification of the forms of government. There are three ways in which states may be governed. They may be governed by one man, or by a number of men, small in proportion to the whole number of men in the state, or by a number large in proportion to the whole number of men in the state. The government may be a monarchy, an aristocracy, or a democracy. The same terms are used by Austin as were used by Aristotle, and in very nearly the same sense. The determining quality in governments in both writers, and it may safely be said in all intermediate writers, is the numerical relation between the constituent members of the government and the population of the state. There were, of course, enormous differences between the state-systems present to the mind of the Greek philosopher and the English jurist. Aristotle was thinking of the small independent states of Greece, Austin of the great peoples of modern Europe. The unit of government in the one case was a city, in the other a nation. This difference is of itself enough to invalidate all generalization founded on the common terminology. But on one point there is a complete parallel between the politics of Aristotle and the politics of Austin. The Greek cities were to the rest of the world very much what European nations and European colonies are to the rest of the world now. They were the only communities in which the governed visibly took some share in the work of government. Outside the European system, as outside the Greek system, we have only the stereotyped uniformity of despotism, whether savage or civilized. The question of forms of government, therefore, belongs entirely to the European races. The virtues and defects of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy are the virtues and defects manifested by the historical Governments of Europe. The generality of the language used by political writers must not blind us to the fact that they are thinking only of a comparatively small portion of mankind.

Greek Politics.— Aristotle divides governments according to two principles. In all states the governing power seeks either its own advantage or the advantage of the whole state, and the government is bad or good accordingly. In all states the governing power is one man, or a few men, or many men. Hence six varieties of government, three of which are bad and three good. Each excellent form has a corresponding depraved form, thus :—

The good government of one (Monarchy) corresponds to the depraved form (Tyranny).

The good government of few (Aristocracy) corresponds to the depraved form (Oligarchy).

The good government of many (Commonwealth) corresponds to the depraved form (Democracy).

The fault of the depraved forms is that the governors act unjustly where their own interests are concerned. The worst of the depraved forms is tyranny, the next oligarchy, and the least bad democracy. Each of the three leading types exhibits a number of varieties. Thus in monarchy we have the heroic, the barbaric, the elective dictatorship, the Lacedemonian (hereditary generalship, στρατηγία), and absolute monarchy. So democracy and oligarchy exhibit four corresponding varieties. The best type of democracy is that of a community mainly agricultural, whose citizens, therefore, have not leisure for political affairs, and allow the law to rule. The best oligarchy is that in which a considerable number of small proprietors have the power; here, too, the laws prevail. The worst democracy consists of a larger citizen class having leisure for politics; and the worst oligarchy is that of a small number of very rich and influential men. In both the sphere of law is reduced to a minimum. A good government is one in which as much as possible is left to the laws, and as little as possible to the will of the governor.

The Politics of Aristotle, from which these principles are taken, presents a striking picture of the variety and activity of political life in the free communities of Greece. The king and council of heroic times had disappeared, and selfgovernment in some form or other was the general rule. It is to be noticed, however, that the Governments of Greece were essentially unstable. The political philosophers could lay down the law of development by which one form of government gives birth to another. Aristotle devotes a large portion of his work to the consideration of the causes of revolutions. The dread of tyranny was kept alive by the facility with which an over-powerful and unscrupulous citizen could seize the whole machinery of government. Communities oscillated between some form of oligarchy and some form of democracy. The security of each was constantly imperilled by the conspiracies of the opposing factions. Hence, although political life exhibits that exuberant variety of form and expression which characterizes all the intellectual products of Greece, it lacks the quality of persistent progress. Then there was no approximation to a national government, even of the federal type. The varying confederacies and hegemonies are the nearest approach to anything of the kind. What kind of national government would ultimately have arisen if Greece had not been crushed it is needless to conjecture; the true interest of Greek politics lies in the fact that the free citizens were, in the strictest sense of the word, selfgoverned. Each citizen took his turn at the common business of the state. Ho spoke his own views in the agora, and from time to time in his own person acted as magistrate or judge. Citizenship in Athens was a liberal education, such as it never can be made under any representative system.

The Government of Rome.— During the whole period of freedom the government of Rome was, in theory at least, municipal self-government. Each citizen had a right to vote laws in his own person in the comitia of the centuries or the tribes. The administrative powers of government were, however, in the hands of a bureaucratic assembly, recruited from the holders of high public office. The senate represented capacity and experience rather than rank and wealth. Without some such instrument the city government of Rome could never have made the conquest of the world. The gradual extension of the citizenship to other Italians changed the character of Roman government. The distant citizens could not come to the voting booths; the device of representation was not discovered; and the comitia fell into the power of the town voters. In the last stage of the Roman republic, the inhabitants of one town wielded the resources of a worldwide empire. We can imagine what would be the effect of leaving to the people of London or Paris the supreme control of the British empire or of France,—irresistible temptation, inevitable corruption. The rabble of the capital learn to live on the rest of the empire. The favour of the effeminate masters of the world is purchased by panem et circenses. That capable officers and victorious armies should long be content to serve such masters was impossible. A conspiracy of generals placed itself at the head of affairs, and the most capable of them made himself sole master. Under Caesar, Augustus, and Tiberius, the Roman people became habituated to a new form of government, which is best described by the name of Caesarism. The outward forms of republican government remained, but one man united in his own person all the leading offices, and used them to give a seemingly legal title to what was essentially military despotism. There is no more interesting constitutional study than the chapters in which Tacitus traces the growth of the new system under the subtle and dissimulating intellect of Tiberius. The new Roman empire was as full of fictions as the English constitution of the present day. The master of the world posed as the humble servant of a menial senate. Deprecating the outward symbols of sovereignty, he was satisfied with the modest powers...

The posterity of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were set apart and destined to the great object of preserving and transmitting the true religion, Gen. xviii, 16–20; xvii, 9–14; xii, 3; xxii, 18; xxviii, 14. Having increased in numbers, it appeared very evident that they could not live among nations given to idolatry without running the hazard of becoming infected with the same evil. They were, therefore, in the providence of God, assigned to a particular country, the extent of which was so small, that they were obliged, if they would live independently of other nations, to give up in a great measure the life of shepherds, and devote themselves to agriculture. Farther: very many of the Hebrews during their residence in Egypt had fallen into idolatrous habits. These were to be brought back again to the knowledge of the true God, and all were to be excited to engage in those undertakings which should be found necessary for the support of the true religion. All the Mosaic institutions aim at the accomplishment of these objects. The fundamental principle, therefore, of those institutions was this,--that the true God, the Creator and Governor of the universe, and none other, ought to be worshipped. To secure this end the more certainly, God became king to the Hebrews. Accordingly, the land of Canaan, which was destined to be occupied by them, was declared to be the land of Jehovah, of which he was to be the king, and the Hebrews merely the hereditary occupants. God promulgated, from the clouds of Mount Sinai, the prominent laws for the government of his people, considered as a religious community, Exod. xx. These laws were afterward more fully developed and illustrated by Moses. The rewards which should accompany the obedient, and the punishments which should be the lot of the transgressor, were at the same time announced, and the Hebrews promised by a solemn oath to obey, Exodus xxi-xxiv; Deut. xxvii-xxx.

In order to keep the true nature of the community fully and constantly in view, all the ceremonial institutions had reference to God, not only as the Sovereign of the universe, but as the King of the people. The people were taught to feel that the tabernacle was not only the temple of Jehovah, but the palace of their King; that the priests were the royal servants, and were bound to attend not only to sacred but to secular affairs, and were to receive, as their salary, the first tithes, which the people, as subjects, were led to consider a part of that revenue which was due to God, their immediate Sovereign. Other things of a less prominent and important nature had reference to the same great end. Since, therefore, God was the Sovereign, in a civil point of view as well as others, of Palestine and its inhabitants, the commission of idolatry by any inhabitant of that country, even a foreigner, was a defection from the true King. It was, in fact, treason; was considered a crime equal in aggravation to that of murder; and was, consequently, attended with the severest punishment. Whoever invited or exhorted to idolatry was considered seditious, and was obnoxious to the same punishment. Incantations also, necromancy, and other practices of this nature, were looked upon as arts of a kindred aspect with idolatry itself; and the same punishment was to be inflicted upon the perpetrators of them as upon idolaters. The same rigour of inquiry after the perpetrators of idolatry was enforced, that was exhibited in respect to other crimes of the deepest aggravation; and the person who knew of the commission of idolatry in another was bound by the law to complain of the person thus guilty before the judge, though the criminal sustained the near relationship of a wife or a brother, a daughter or a son.

Many things in the administration of the government remained the same under the Mosaic economy, as it had been before. The authority which they had previously possessed, was continued in the time of Moses and after his time, to the princes of the tribes, to the heads of families and combinations of families, and to the genealogists, Num. xi, 16; Deut. xvi, 18; xx, 5; xxxi, 28. Yet Moses, by the advice of Jethro, his father-in-law, increased the number of rulers by the appointment of an additional number of judges; some to judge over ten, some over fifty, some over a hundred, and some over a thousand, men, Exodus xviii, 13–26. These judges were elected by the suffrages of the people from those who, by their authority and rank, might be reckoned among the rulers or princes of the people. The inferior judges, that is, those who superintended the judicial concerns of the smaller numbers, were subordinate to the superior judges, or those who judged a larger number; and cases, accordingly, of a difficult nature went up from the inferior to the superior judges. Those of a very difficult character, so much so as to be perplexing to the superior judges, were appealed to Moses himself, and in some cases from Moses to the high priest. The judges, of whom we have now spoken, sustained a civil as well as a judicial authority, and were included in the list of those who are denominated the elders and princes of Israel: that is to say, supposing they were chosen from the elders and princes, they did not forfeit their seat among them by accepting a judicial office; and, on the contrary, the respectability attached to their office, supposing they were not chosen from them, entitled them to be reckoned in their number, Deut. xxxi, 28; Joshua viii, 33; xxiii, 2; xxiv, 1. The various civil officers that have been mentioned, namely, judges, heads of families, genealogists, elders, princes of the tribes, &c, were dispersed, as a matter of course, in different parts of the country. Those of them, accordingly, who dwelt in the same city, or the same neighbourhood, formed the _comitia_, senate or legislative assembly of their immediate vicinity, Deut. xix, 12; xxv, 8, 9; Judges viii, 14; ix, 3–46; xi, 5; 1 Sam. viii, 4; xvi, 4. When all that dwelt in any particular tribe were convened, they formed the legislative assembly of the tribe; and when they were convened in one body from all the tribes, they formed in like manner the legislative assembly of the nation, and were the representatives of all the people, Joshua xxiii, 1, 2; xxiv, 1. The priests, who were the learned class of the community, and beside were hereditary officers in the state, being set apart for civil as well as religious purposes, had, by the divine command, a right to a sitting in this assembly, Exod. xxxii, 29; Num. xxxvi, 15; viii, 5–26. Being thus called upon to sustain very different and yet very important offices, they became the subjects of that envy which would naturally be excited by the honour and the advantages attached to their situation. In order to confirm them in the duties which devolved upon them, and to throw at the greatest distance the mean and lurking principle just mentioned, God, after the sedition of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, sanctioned the separation of the whole tribe, which had been previously made to the service of religion and the state, by a most evident and striking miracle, Num. xvi, 1–7.

Each tribe was governed by its own rulers, and consequently to a certain extent constituted a civil community, independent of the other tribes, Judges xx, 11–46; 2 Sam. ii, 4; Judges i, 21. If any affair concerned the whole or many of the tribes, it was determined by them in conjunction in the legislative assembly of the nation, Judges xi, 1–11; 1 Chron. v, 10, 18, 19; 2 Sam. iii, 17; 1 Kings xii, 1–24. If one tribe found itself unequal to the execution of any proposed plan, it might connect itself with another, or even a number of the other tribes, Judges i, 1–3, 22; iv, 10; vii, 23, 24; viii, 1–3. But, although in many things each tribe existed by itself, and acted separately, yet in others they were united, and formed but one community: for all the tribes were bound together, so as to form one church and one civil community, not only by their common ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; not only by the common promises which they had received from those ancestors; not only by the need in which they stood of mutual counsel and assistance; but also by the circumstance that God was their common King, and that they had a common tabernacle for his palace, and a common sacerdotal and Levitical order for his ministers. Accordingly, every tribe exerted a sort of inspection over the others, as respected their observance of the law. If any thing had been neglected, or any wrong had been done, the particular tribe concerned was amenable to the others; and, in case justice could not be secured in any other way, might be punished with war, Joshua xxii, 9–34; Judges xx, 1, &c.

When we remember that God was expressly chosen the King of the people, and that he enacted laws and decided litigated points of importance, Numbers xvii, 1–11; xxvii, 1–11; xxxvi, 1–10; when we remember also that he answered and solved questions proposed, Num. xv, 32–41; Joshua vii, 16–22; Judges i, 1, 2; xx, 18, 27, 28; 1 Sam. xiv, 37; xxiii, 9–12; xxx, 8; 2 Sam. ii, 1; that he threatened punishment, and that, in some instances, he actually inflicted it upon the hardened and impenitent, Num. xi, 33–35; xii, 1–15; xvi, 1–50; Lev. xxvi, 3–46; Deut. xxvi-xxx; when, finally, we take into account, that he promised prophets, who were to be, as it were, his ambassadors, Deut. xviii, and afterward sent them according to his promise, and that, in order to preserve the true religion, he governed the whole people by a striking and peculiar providence, we are at liberty to say, that God was, in fact, the Monarch of the people, and that the government was a theocracy. But, although the government of the Jews was a theocracy, it was not destitute of the usual forms which exist in civil governments among men. God, it is true, was the King, and the high priest, if we may be allowed so to speak, was his minister of state; but still the political affairs were in a great measure under the disposal of the elders, princes, &c. It was to them that Moses gave the divine commands, determined expressly their powers; and submitted their requests to the decision of God, Num. xiv, 5; xvi, 4, &c; xxvii, 5; xxxvi, 5, 6. It was in reference to the great power possessed by these men, who formed the legislative assembly of the nation, that Josephus pronounced the government to be aristocratical. But from the circumstance that the people possessed so much influence, as to render it necessary to submit laws to them for their ratification, and that they even took upon themselves sometimes to propose laws or to resist those which were enacted; from the circumstance also that the legislature of the nation had not the power of laying taxes, and that the civil code was regulated and enforced by God himself, independently of the legislature, Lowman and Michaëlis are in favour of considering the Hebrew government a democracy. In support of their opinion such passages are exhibited as the following, Exodus xix, 7, 8; xxiv, 3–8; Deut. xxix, 9–14; Joshua ix, 18, 19; xxiii, 1, &c; xxiv, 2, &c; 1 Samuel x, 24; xi, 14, 15; Num. xxvii, 1–8; xxxvi, 1–9. The truth seems to lie between these two opinions. The Hebrew government, putting out of view its theocratical feature, was of a mixed form, in some respects approaching to a democracy, in others assuming more of an aristocratical character.

From what has been said, it is clear, that the Ruler and supreme Head of the political community in question was God, who, with the design of promoting the good of his subjects, condescended to exhibit his visible presence in the tabernacle, wherever it travelled and wherever it dwelt. If, in reference to the assertion, that God was the Ruler of the Jewish state, it should be inquired what part was sustained by Moses, the answer is, that God was the Ruler, the people were his subjects, and Moses was the mediator or internuncio between them. But the title most appropriate to Moses, and most descriptive of the part he sustained, is that of legislator of the Israelites and their deliverer from the Egyptians. If the same question should be put in respect to Joshua, the answer would be, that he was not properly the successor of Moses, and that, so far from being the ruler of the state, he was designated by the ruler to sustain the subordinate office of military leader of the Israelites in their conquest of the land of Canaan.

But, although the Hebrew state was so constituted, that beside God, the invisible King, and his visible servant, the high priest, there was no other general ruler of the commonwealth, yet it is well known that there were rulers of a high rank, appointed at various times, called ושפט, a word which not only signifies a _judge_ in the usual sense of the term, but any governor, or administrator of public affairs, 1 Sam. viii, 20; Isaiah xi, 4; 1 Kings iii, 9. The power lodged in these rulers, who are called judges in the Scriptures, seems to have been in some respects paramount to that of the general _comitia_ of the nation, and we find that they declared war, led armies, concluded peace; and that this was not the whole, if indeed it was the most important part, of their duties. For many of the judges, for instance, Jair, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon, Eli, and Samuel, ruled the nation in peace. They might appropriately enough be called the supreme executive, exercising all the rights of sovereignty, with the exception of enacting laws, and imposing taxes. They were honoured, but they bore no external badges of distinction; they were distinguished, but they enjoyed no special privileges themselves, and communicated none to their posterity. They subserved the public good without emolument, that the state might be prosperous, that religion might be preserved, and that God alone might be King in Israel. It ought to be observed, however, that not all the judges ruled the whole nation: some of them presided over only a few separate tribes.

God, in the character of King, had governed the Israelites for sixteen ages. He ruled them, on the terms which he himself, through the agency of Moses, had proposed to them, namely, that if they observed their allegiance to him, they should be prosperous; if not, adversity and misery would be the consequence, Exod. xix, 4, 5; xxiii, 20–33; Lev. xxvi, 3–46; Deut. xxviii-xxx. We may learn from the whole book of Judges, and from the first eight chapters of Samuel, how exactly the result, from the days of Joshua down to the time of Samuel, agreed with these conditions. But in the time of Samuel, the government, in point of form, was changed into a monarchy. The election of king, however, was committed to God, who chose one by lot: so that God was still the Ruler, and the king the vicegerent. The terms of the government, as respected God, were the same as before, and the same duties and principles were inculcated on the Israelites as had been originally, 1 Sam. viii, 7; x, 17–23; xii, 14, 15, 20–22, 24, 25. In consequence of the fact, that Saul did not choose at all times to obey the commands of God, the kingdom was taken from him and given to another, 1 Sam. xiii, 5–14; xv, 1–31. David, through the agency of Samuel, was selected by Jehovah for king, who thus gave a proof that he still retained, and was disposed to exercise, the right of appointing the ruler under him, 1 Samuel xvi, 1–3. David was first made king over Judah; but as he received his appointment from God, and acted under his authority, the other eleven tribes submitted to him, 2 Sam. v, 1–3; 1 Chron. xxviii, 4–6. David expressly acknowledged God as the Sovereign, and, as having a right to appoint the immediate ruler of the people, 1 Chron. xxviii, 7–10; he religiously obeyed his statutes, the people adhered firmly to God, and his reign was prosperous. The paramount authority of God, as the King of the nation, and his right to appoint one who should act in the capacity of his vicegerent, are expressly recognized in the books of Kings and Chronicles.

On the subversion of the Babylonian empire by Cyrus, the founder of the Persian monarchy, (B. C. 543,) he authorized the Jews, by an edict, to return into their own country, with full permission to enjoy their laws and religion, and caused the city and temple of Jerusalem to be rebuilt. In the following year, part of the Jews returned under Zerubbabel, and renewed their sacrifices: but the reërection of the city and temple being interrupted for several years by the treachery and hostility of the Samaritans or Cutheans, the avowed enemies of the Jews, the completion and dedication of the temple did not take place until the year B. C. 511, six years after the accession of Cyrus. The rebuilding of Jerusalem was accomplished, and the reformation of their ecclesiastical and civil polity was effected, by the two divinely inspired and pious governors, Ezra and Nehemiah; but the theocratic government does not appear to have been restored. The new temple was not, as formerly, God’s palace; and the cloud of his presence did not take possession of it. After their death the Jews were governed by their high priests, in subjection however to the Persian kings, to whom they paid tribute, Ezra iv, 13; vii, 24, but with the full enjoyment of their other magistrates, as well as their liberties, civil and religious. Nearly three centuries of uninterrupted prosperity ensued, until the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria, when they were most cruelly oppressed, and compelled to take up arms in their own defence. Under the able conduct of Judas, surnamed Maccabeus, and his valiant brothers, the Jews maintained a religious war for twenty-six years with five successive kings of Syria; and after destroying upward of two hundred thousand of their best troops, the Maccabees finally established the independence of their own country and the aggrandizement of their family. This illustrious house, whose princes united the regal and pontifical dignity in their own persons, administered the affairs of the Jews during a period of one hundred and twenty-six years; until, disputes arising between Hyrcanus II, and his brother Aristobulus, the latter was defeated by the Romans under Pompey, who captured Jerusalem, and reduced Judea to dependence, B. C. 59.