That part of the Scripture which was first law was the Ten Commandments,written in two tables of stone and delivered by God Himself to Moses,and by Moses made known to the people.Before that time there was no written law of God,who,as yet having not chosen any people to be His peculiar kingdom,had given no law to men,but the law of nature,that is to say,the precepts of natural reason,written in every man's own heart.Of these two tables,the first containeth the law of sovereignty:1.That they should not obey nor honour the gods of other nations,in these words,Non habebis deos alienos coram me;that is,"Thou shalt not have for gods,the gods that other nations worship,but only me":whereby they were forbidden to obey or honour as their king and governor any other God than Him that spake unto them by Moses,and afterwards by the high priest.2.That they "should not make any image to represent Him";that is to say,they were not to choose to themselves,neither in heaven nor in earth,any representative of their own fancying,but obey Moses and Aaron,whom He had appointed to that office.3.That "they should not take the name of God in vain";that is,they should not speak rashly of their King,nor dispute his right,nor the commissions of Moses and Aaron,His lieutenants.4.That "they should every seventh day abstain from their ordinary labour,"and employ that time in doing Him public honour.The second table containeth the duty of one man towards another,as "To honour parents";"Not to kill";"Not to commit adultery";"Not to steal";"Not to corrupt judgement by false witness";and finally,"Not so much as to design in their heart the doing of any injury one to another."The question now is who it was that gave to these written tables the obligatory force of laws.There is no doubt but they were made laws by God Himself:but because a law obliges not,nor is law to any but to them that acknowledge it to be the act of the sovereign,how could the people of Israel,that were forbidden to approach the mountain to hear what God said to Moses,be obliged to obedience to all those laws which Moses propounded to them?Some of them were indeed the laws of nature,as all the second table,and therefore to be acknowledged for God's laws;not to the Israelites alone,but to all people:but of those that were peculiar to the Israelites,as those of the first table,the question remains,saving that they had obliged themselves,presently after the propounding of them,to obey Moses,in these words,"Speak thou to us,and we will hear thee;but let not God speak to us,lest we die."It was therefore only Moses then,and after him the high priest,whom,by Moses,God declared should administer this His peculiar kingdom,that had on earth the power to make this short Scripture of the Decalogue to be law in the commonwealth of Israel.But Moses,and Aaron,and the succeeding high priests were the civil sovereigns.Therefore hitherto the canonizing,or making of the Scripture law,belonged to the civil sovereign.
The judicial law,that is to say,the laws that God prescribed to the magistrates of Israel for the rule of their administration of justice,and of the sentences or judgements they should pronounce in pleas between man and man;and the Levitical law,that is to say,the rule that God prescribed touching the rites and ceremonies of the priests and Levites,were all delivered to them by Moses only;and therefore also became laws by virtue of the same promise of obedience to Moses.Whether these laws were then written,or not written,but dictated to the people by Moses,after his forty days being with God in the Mount,by word of mouth,is not expressed in the text;but they were all positive laws,and equivalent to Holy Scripture,and made canonical by Moses the civil sovereign.
After the Israelites were come into the plains of Moab over against Jericho,and ready to enter into the Land of Promise,Moses to the former laws added diverse others;which therefore are called Deuteronomy;that is,Second Laws;and are,as it is written,"the words of a covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel,besides the covenant which he made with them in Horeb."For having explained those former laws,in the beginning of the Book of Deuteronomy,he addeth others,that begin at the twelfth Chapter and continue to the end of the twenty-sixth of the same book.This law they were commanded to write upon great stones plastered over,at their passing over Jordan:this law also was written by Moses himself in a book,and delivered into the hands of the priests,and to the elders of Israel,and commanded "to be put in the side of the Ark";for in the Ark itself was nothing but the Ten Commandments.This was the law which Moses commanded the kings of Israel should keep a copy of:and this is the law which,having been long time lost,was found again in the Temple in the time of Josiah,and by his authority received for the law of God.But both Moses at the writing and Josiah at the recovery thereof had both of them the civil sovereignty.Hitherto therefore the power of making Scripture canonical was in the civil sovereign.
