And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes
and
judgments so righteous
Founded in justice and equity, and so agreeable to right reason,
and so well calculated and adapted to lead persons in the ways of
righteousness and truth, and keep them from doing any injury to
each other's persons and properties, and to maintain good order,
peace, and concord among them:
as all this law which I set before you this
day?
which he then repeated, afresh declared, explained and instructed
them in; for otherwise it had been delivered to them near forty
years ago. Now there was not any nation then in being, nor any
since, to be compared with the nation of the Jews, for the wise
and wholesome laws given unto them; no, not the more cultivated
and civilized nations, as the Grecians and Romans, who had the
advantage of such wise lawgivers as they were accounted, as
Solon, Lycurgus, Numa, and others; and indeed the best laws that
they had seem to be borrowed from the Jews.