Theocracy

THEOCRACY. This Word is made use of by Josephus¹ to express the Form of Government of the Jews. “ Among the several Nations of the World, says he, some have chosen Monarchial Government, others Democratical, or the Government of the People; but our

“ Legislator establishes a Form of Government very different from all others, which is a Theocracy, if I may be allowed to say so, which gives the whole Power to God, and the Management of all the Affairs of the Nation; inspiring us with this Maxim, that God sees every thing, and that he is the Cause of all the Good that happens to us.”

The Government of the Jews, which Josephus calls a Theocracy, has been subject to several Changes. We have seen in this Nation the Legislator Moses, his Successor Joshua, the Judges, the Kings, and the High-Priests, who governed it successively. In all these Revolutions, God indeed was looked upon as the Monarch of Israel; but he was far from exercising his Authority and Jurisdiction always in the same Manner.

At the time of Moses we may affirm that he govern’d immediately; for he revealed his Will upon all Emergencies to this Legislator, which was accordingly put in execution. He dwelt among his People as a King in his Palace, and in the midst of his Camp; being always ready to give an Answer when consulted, to restrain those that transgressed against his Laws, to instruct those that had any Scruple about the Sense of his Ordinances, to determine those that were in suspence about any important Undertaking. This was, properly, the time of the Theocracy, taken in the strictest sense.

It was much the same under the Government of Joshua: This great Man, full of the Spirit of Moses, would do nothing without first consulting him: At least, he consulted him in all Affairs of consequence; though sometimes indeed he followed the Suggestions of his own Mind, as in the Business of the Gibeonites, and that of Ai; but we find how God resented it, and how he recalled both Captain and People to their Obedience. In those happy Times, when all the Motions of the General and Soldiers were regulated by immediate Orders from God, Victory and good Success attended of course; God rewarded their Fidelity and Obedience by a Succession of Prodigies, which were sure Pledges of his Protection and Good-will.

The Judges that succeeded Joshua were Heroes whom God raised from time to time, for the Deliverance of his People. He endued them with extraordinary Strength and Courage, filled them with his Spirit, and generally worked Miracles by their means in favour of the Hebrews. Sometimes we find a whole Generation to pass away without any Judges at all, as it happened after Joshua’s Time: Some times these Interruptions were shorter: Sometimes it was an Heroine, as Deborah, that God raised up to judge and deliver his People; sometimes their Valour was limited to the delivering of one Tribe only out of Slavery, and sometimes all Israel was restored to Liberty. The Servitudes that were frequent at that time, did not always extend over the whole Nation. Some were confined to the Country beyond Jordan, as that from which Jephthah delivered his Countrymen; others reached no farther than on this side that River: Others again were more general and extensive; but all of them were but just Punishments of the Iniquities of the People, to whom God shewed the Difference there was between the Mildness of a Father, or of a merciful God that governs, and the cruel Severity of an insulting Conqueror.

The first Step that the Israelites made, when, several Years after the Death of Judg. ii. 7, 10.Joshua, they saw themselves oppressed by the Canaanites, plainly shews what was then Judg. i. 1, 2.the Form of their Goverment. The children of Israel asked the Lord, saying, Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first to fight against them? And the Lord said, Judah shall go up; behold, I have delivered the land into his hand. Here is still a true Theocracy, and the Exercise of the Power of God, in the Appointment of Leaders who were to govern and command the People in his Name. All the Judges, in like manner, received their Commissions and Authority from him. When the Israelites would have given the chief Command to Gideon, for himself and his Successors, he made answer, I will not rule over you, neither myself, nor my son, but the Lord shall rule over you. Dixerunt omnes viri Israel, Judg. viii. 22, 23.ad Gideon; Dominare nostri tu, & filius tuus, & filius filii tui quia liberasti nos de manu Madian; quibus ille ait: Non dominabor vestri, nec dominabitur in vos filius meus, sed dominabitur vobis Dominus.

When the Israelites urged Samuel to give them a King, as all the other Nations had which were round about them, this Prophet was very much concerned at it, as a kind of Outrage and Contempt put upon the Majesty of God, who was their Head and their King. Samuel prayed to God in the Bitterness of his Soul, and the Lord answered him, Hearken to the Importunities of this People, for it is not you, but me, that they would reject. Non enim te abjecerunt, sed me, ne regnem super eos. God granted them a King in his Indignation, and took him away again in his Fury: Dabo tibi regem in furore meo, & auferam in indignatione mea.

At the same time he bid Samuel to lay before them the Rights and Prerogatives 1 Sam. viii. 11, 12, 13, &c.that their Kings would assume over them. He will take your Sons to make them his Guards, his Messengers, his Officers, his Husbandmen, and his Artificers: He will take your Daughters to make them his Cooks, his Milliners, his Confectioners: He will take possession of your Fields, of your Vineyards, and your Oliveyards, and will give them to his Servants: He will take the Tythes of your Fields, your Vineyards, your Cattle, to give them to his Eunuchs and his Favourites. Then will you cry to me, but I will not hear you, because ‘tis you yourselves that will have a King. In all this we still perceive the Sovereign or Royal Authority of God: ‘Tis he that grants them a King, ‘tis he that settles his Rights; ‘tis he that disposes of him, and he reproves him in his Indignation, as soon as he fails in the Obedience and Submission that is due to him.

Deut. xvii. 14, 15, &c.In Deuteronomy, Moses says to the People, foreseeing that one day they would have a King; When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set up a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me; thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee whom the Lord thy God shall chuse; one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee; thou mayst not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother: But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses; forasmuch as the Lord hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away; neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. And it shall be when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book, out of that which is before the Priests and Levites: And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life; that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law, and these statutes, to do them; that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right-hand, or to the left; to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom; he, and his children, in the midst of Israel.

Such then was to be the Government of the Hebrews under their Kings. They were to be chosen of God, instructed by his Priests, submissive to his Orders, nor to undertake any thing of consequence without first consulting him; and under such a Dependance upon his Will that he might reject them, as he did Saul, when they became unmindful of their Duty. When God promised David to make the Crown 1 Sam. viii.

Hos. xiii. 11.5, 7. Crown hereditary in his Family, that was departing from the first Maxims of the Monarchy, which intended that the Kings should be elective, and given to the People by the Hand of God.

It must be acknowledged that after David, the Kings of Judah and Israel took upon themselves to govern according to their own Fancy; and after the Schism that happened under Rehoboam, but few of the Princes kept up to the Rules of the Theocracy we have now been speaking of. They would not be under any Restraint, but endeavoured to cast off that happy Subjection, to which the Judges and the first Kings of Israel willingly submitted. But they found to their cost what a terrible thing it was to rebel against God, and to withdraw themselves from his Power. All kind of Calamities then poured in upon them, and upon their Subjects: They were delivered up as a Prey to their Enemies; they had no Peace or Prosperity either at Home or Abroad: God visited them with a multitude of Troubles, and at last dispersed them into distant Countries.

At the same time, to put them in mind of their Dependance, and to bring them back to their Duty, the Lord caused to appear from time to time a great number of Prophets, full of Zeal, Power, and Courage, who boldly upbraided them with their Prevarications and Impieties; and who opposed themselves, like a Wall of Brass, to whatever they undertook contrary to the Rights of God. These divine Men did not only make their Appearance in the Kingdom of Judah, where the Publick Worship was kept up, but also in the Kingdom of Israel, however schismatick and polluted they might be by the Adoration of the Golden Calf. Therefore we may still affirm, that, notwithstanding the almost general Defection of these two Kingdoms, God still maintained his Theocracy therein, as well by the Vengeance that he executed against wicked Kings, as by that small number of good Princes which were obedient to his Commands, such as Hezekiah and Josiah, and by the Prophets that he raised up from time to time in the Country, till the great Captivity of Babylon.

For the whole time that this Captivity continued, we are not to look for any certain Form of Government in Israel, nor for any regular Polity: ‘Tis in vain that the Jews pretend to find one beyond the Euphrates, either before or since Cyrus’s Time. We do not find any that was well kept up even after the Return from the Captivity, during the time that the Hebrews of Palestine were reduced to the Obedience of the Kings of Persia, and to the Greeks that were Successors to Alexander the Great. If it should be asked, what was then the Form of the Government of the Jewish Nation? the Reply would be, that it was a kind of Aristocracy, subordinate to the Monarchy of the Persians or the Grecians. The High-Priest was at the Head of the Chief of the People, whose Power being limited by the Sovereign Authority, only extended to Matters relating to the Law and Religion: It was a kind of a voluntary Jurisdiction to which the People submitted, so far as they pleased themselves, and were countenanced by the Kings to whom they were in subjection. The High-Priest Jaddus received Alexander at Jerusalem, at the Head of the People; but it was because in this Exigence the City was abandoned by the Governors of the King of Persia; and the prosperous Affairs of Alexander made them connive at such a Proceeding, which, without doubt, they would not have suffered upon another Occasion.

The Asmonean Princes make a fifth Period, which presents a new Face of Government to us. After the Maccabees had stood up for the Religion of their Country, and with great Hazard of their Lives, and with extraordinary Bravery, had withstood the wicked Commands of Antiochus Epiphanes, they at last shook off the Yoke of the Kings of Syria, and asserting their Liberty, they took the Title of Princes of the Jews, and of Kings: And by the Consent of the People, they re-united the High-Priesthood to the Supreme Authority.

Under their Government we still find evident Footsteps of the Theocracy we have been speaking of, as he that was Supreme Governor was invested with the Sacerdotal Character; so that the Kingdom was very properly what Moses calls a kingdom of priests: Eritis mihi in regnum Sacerdotale: Or, as St. Peter speaks Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood: Vos autem genus electum, regale sacerdotium. The Royal Power and the Sacerdotal being united, made a Polity of a singular kind, under Princes that were entirely devoted to the Service of God, instructed in his Laws from their Youth, and interested also, by the Rules of good Politicks, to support them, and to make them observed by the People. They could hardly fail of extirpating out of the State all sorts of Idolatry, Ignorance, Impiety, and those gross Disorders that had prevailed under the Kings. So that the Commonwealth of the Jews was never more in earnest to perform the Laws of God, or more exempt from those Crimes that the Prophets upbraided them with, than under the Asmonean Princes.

It was under their Government that the Romans became Masters of Judea, and fixed their Dominion in it. They did not meddle with their Religion, and even left a good share of Authority with the latter Princes of the Asmonean Race. Herod succeeded them, but he sacrificed every thing to his Ambition and Politicks; and though he made an outward Profession of the Religion of the Jews, yet he gave himself but little trouble about putting it in practice, but violated it upon an hundred Occasions. However, the Priests and People continued firmly attached to it; and when Jesus Christ made his Appearance in Palestine, the Face of Religion was in a flourishing condition. When he began his Preaching he chiefly declared War against the Pharisees, who, by their subtle Distinctions and Refinements upon the Law, had obscured the true Sense of it, and subverted its real Intention. Our Saviour laid open their Hypocrisy, reformed and corrected their Mistakes, restored all things to their primitive Truth, and gave to the Jews the Rules of a pure and sincere Worship, in Mind and in Truth.

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