Samuel Langdon, The Republic of the Israelites an Example to the American States. A Sermon Preached at Concord, in the State of New-Hampshire; before the Honorable General Court, at the Annual Election. June 5, 1788 (Exeter, NH: Lamson & Ranlet, 1788).

Moses recommends to Israel the strict observance of all the laws which he had delivered to them by God’s command, relating both to their civil polity and religion, as the sure way to raise their reputation high among all nations as a wise and understanding people. Upon the complaint of Moses that the burden of government was too heavy for him, God commanded him to bring seventy men, chosen from among the elders and officers, and present them at the tabernacle. A government, thus settled on republican principles, required laws; without which it must have degenerated immediately into aristocracy, or absolute monarchy. But God did not leave a people, wholly unskilled in legislation, to make laws/for themselves: he took this important matter wholly into his own hands, and beside the moral laws of the two tables, which directed their conduct as individuals, gave them by Moses a complete code of judicial laws.