counselor. And when he had first persuaded himself (17) that
his actions and designs were agreeable to God's will, he
thought it his duty to impress, above all things, that notion
upon the multitude; for those who have once believed that
God is the inspector of their lives, will not permit themselves
in any sin. And this is the character of our legislator: he was
no impostor, no deceiver, as his revilers say, though unjustly,
but such a one as they brag Minos (18) to have been among
the Greeks, and other legislators after him; for some of them
suppose that they had their laws from Jupiter, while Minos
said that the revelation of his laws was to be referred to
Apollo, and his oracle at Delphi, whether they really thought
they were so derived, or supposed, however, that they could
persuade the people easily that so it was. But which of these
it was who made the best laws, and which had the greatest
reason to believe that God was their author, it will be easy,
upon comparing those laws themselves together, to
determine; 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