God, but by the device of Moses. (186) After a great slaughter, or
pestilence, the rising subsided from inanition, but in such a manner that
all preferred death to life under such conditions.

(17:187) We should rather say that sedition ceased than that harmony was re-
established. (188) This is witnessed by Scripture (Deut. xxxi:21), where
God, after predicting to Moses that the people after his death will fall
away from the Divine worship, speaks thus: "For I know their imagination
which they go about, even now before I have brought them into the land which
I sware;" and, a little while after (xxxi:27), Moses says: For I know thy
rebellion and thy stiff neck: behold while I am yet alive with you this
day, ye have been rebellious against the Lord; and how much more after my
death!"

(17:189) Indeed, it happened according to his words, as we all know.
(190) Great changes, extreme license, luxury, and hardness of heart grew up;
things went from bad to worse, till at last the people, after being
frequently conquered, came to an open rupture with the Divine right, and
wished for a mortal king, so that the seat of government might be the Court,
instead of the Temple, and that the tribes might remain fellow-citizens in
respect to their king, instead of in respect to Divine right and the high
priesthood.

(17:191) A vast material for new seditions was thus produced, eventually
resulting in the ruin of the entire state. Kings are above all things
jealous of a precarious rule, and can in nowise brook a dominion within
their own. (192) The first monarchs, being chosen from the ranks of private
citizens, were content with the amount of dignity to which they had risen;
but their sons, who obtained the throne by right of inheritance, began
gradually to introduce changes, so as to get all the sovereign rights into