SECTION II.—OF THE REPUTATION AND THE TRUTH OF

THE PROPHETIC DlGNlTY.

Know that, when individuals of mankind want
to associate in the concerns of life, they find it in-
dispensable to have recourse to customs, regula-
tions, and religious faith, in order that they may
be concordant, and that oppression may be ex-
cluded from their transactions and associations, and
the order of the world preserved. It is requisite
to refer the customs and regulations to God, and
to proclaim that they proceed from God, in order
that all may adopt them. On that account the ne-
cessity of theology and of a prophetic mission became
evident, in order that the institutes for the govern-
ment of the creatures may be established, and, by
means of mildness and severity, men might be in-
duced to be concordant, and the different conditions
of the world arranged. And such an institutor is
named " illustrious sage;" his precepts are likewise
celebrated; among the eminent moderns, his title is
that of " prophet," or " legislator," and that of his
precepts <<; the law." But his deputy, who is a
judge, ought to be a person distinguished by divine
grace, that he may promote the instruction and ar-
range the affairs of mankind; such a man is called
by the wise " an universal ruler," and his precepts
are entitled " the practice of the empire;" the mo-