Page:Studies in the Scriptures - Series I - The Plan of the Ages (1909).djvu/55

 In himself and his own family, these would have been the last men to honor with power and office.

The instructions given those appointed to civil rulership as from God are a model of simplicity and purity. Moses declares to the people, in the hearing of these judges: " I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger [foreigner] that is with him. Ye shall not rcspedl persons in judgment ; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great ; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God's ; and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it." (Dcut. i : 16, 17.) Such hard cases were, after Moses 1 death, brought dire&ly to the Lord through the High Priest, the answer being Yes or No, by the Urzm and Thummim.

In view of these faffs, what shall we say of the theory which suggests that these lx>oks were written by knavish priests to secure to themselves influence and power over the people ? Would such men for such a purpose forge records destructive to the very aims they sought to advance rec- ords which prove conclusively that the great Chief of Israel, and one of their own tribe, at the instance of God, cut off the priesthood from civil power by placing that power in the hands of the people ? Does any one consider such a conclusion reasonable ?

Again, it is worthy of note that the laws of the most advanced civilization, in this nineteenth century, do not more carefully provide that rich and poor shall stand on a common level in accountability before the civil law. Ab- solutely no distin&ion was made by Moses' laws. And as for the protection of the j>eople from the dangers incident to some becoming very poor and other* excessively wealthy and powerful, no other national law hie ever been enacted

4~A

�� �