ealth can only exist by the laws being binding on
all. If all the members of a state wish to disregard the law, by that
very fact they dissolve the state and destroy the commonwealth. Thus,
the only reward which could be promised to the Hebrews for continued
obedience to the law was security and its attendant advantages, while no
surer punishment could be threatened for disobedience, than the ruin of
the state and the evils which generally follow therefrom, in addition to
such further consequences as might accrue to the Jews in particular from
the ruin of their especial state. But there is no need here to go into
this point at more length. I will only add that the laws of the Old
Testament were revealed and ordained to the Jews only, for as God chose
them in respect to the special constitution of their society and
government, they must, of course, have had special laws. Whether God
ordained special laws for other nations also, and revealed Himself to
their lawgivers prophetically, that is, under the attributes by which
the latter were accustomed to imagine Him, I cannot sufficiently
determine. It is evident from Scripture itself that other nations
acquired supremacy and particular laws by the external aid of God.

If any one wishes to maintain that the Jews ... have been chosen by God
for ever, I will not gainsay him if he will admit that this choice,
whether temporary or eternal, has no regard, in so far as it is peculiar
to the Jews, to aught but dominion and physical advantages (for by such
alone can one nation be distinguished from another), whereas in regard
to intellect and true virtue, every nation is on a par with the rest,
and God has not in these respects chosen one people rather than
another.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] From the _Tr. Th.-P._, ch. iii, same title.

CHAPTER V

OF THE DIVINE LAW[7]

The word law, taken in the abstract means that by which an individual,
or all things, or as many things as belong to a particular species, act
in one and the same fixed and definite manner, which manner depends
either on natural necessity or on human decree. A law which depends on
natural necessity is one which necessarily follows from the nature, or
from the definition of the thing in question; a law which depends on
human decree, and which is more correctly called an ordinance, is one
which men have laid down for themselves and others in order to live more
safely or conveniently, or from some similar reason.