TO Kings and Monarchs it belongs to bear the Sword of God in order to defend the States with which he hath entrusted them, and the People whom he has made subject to them. It is their Part to take care that good Order be observed in the Armies which they levy on such Occasions, and when they are victorious the whole Glory of their Success should be referred by them to the God of Battels. It is with reason therefore that we join this Article to the preceding one, that herein we may speak of those who have treated of the Militia of the Hebrews.
But before this it may be proper to see our Dissertation on the military Affairs of the Hebrews, prefixed to our Comment upon the Book of Esther.
Dissertatio de Hebræorum re militari, by Andrew Dantz, or Dantzius, on the 20th and 21st Chapters of Deuteronomy. This Dissertation was printed at Jena, in 4to, 1690. See our Lists upon the Old and new Testament, or his Title in the Index.
Agonostica Sacra, by James Lydius; at Dort, 1698, in 4to. by the Care of Solomon Vantill, and with his Notes, as Fabricius informs us in his Bibliographia, numb. 2. ch. 17. He adds, that it was translated into Flemish by Adrian Van- Halen, and printed with his Notes, at Roterdam, in the Year 1703, in 8vo. The same Fabricius does not tell us whether his Syntagma de re Militari has been printed. This Lydius was a Fleming, a Calvinist, and Minister of the Church of Dort.
Pallas armata, by James Turner, in English, at London, 1683, in fol.
To all these Authors we may add John Arrowsmith’s Tactica Sacra, in three Books, printed at Cambridge in 1657, and at Amsterdam, in 1700, in 4to. which however is altogether spiritual, practical, and moral. He was an Englishman, of the Church of England, and Professor at Cambridge in 1660.
M. le Pelletier, of Rohan, has also written a Dissertation in the way of Letter, wherein he attacks the false Representations of Painters in their Pictures of the Israelitish Camp in the Wilderness. It is printed in the Memoirs of Trevoux, for the Month of December, 1704. We speak of it more particularly upon Numbers, Art. XIII.
Lastly, the Reader will find several Articles in this Dictionary concerning the Way of making War in use among the Hebrews, their Tacticks, and Art Military, by the celebrated Chevalier de Folard.