Chapter 4. Moses, Moses

The Civil State

And Moses said unto the people, Remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the LORD brought you out from this [place]: there shall no leavened bread be eaten. Ex. 13:3

Moses was a leader of a nation. He took the people out of a particular kind of governmental system and then he taught a system of faith where men’s allegiance was to their own God given conscience and not under the authority of other men.

The Ten Commandments was not a religious document but like the 12 tablets of Rome, it was the foundation laws of an entire nation and its government.

For four hundred years men governed themselves in a free Republic under God, not as the property and resources of the central state government or economy but as free souls under God. What was this government called Israel like? How was it intended to work and why did they call it Israel, where God prevailed? How did the Israelites end up in Egypt?

“If we want better people to make a better world, then we will have to begin where people are made, in the family.”¹

Joseph’s brothers delivered him into bondage as a result of their own selfishness, envy and covetous hearts. Had they not done this, Joseph’s relation with God would have revealed to them the coming events. It would have been Israel, not Egypt, that would have prepared for the famine to come. The sons of Jacob would have become wealthy among nations. Instead they betrayed the Law of the Family and cast the source of their own salvation into a pit of jealousy, envy and pride. The family broke down and without it their days would not be long upon the land.

The individual contributed to and relied upon his family and the family contributed and sometimes relied upon the community. There were thousands of systems provided by communities to establish this social safety net but two disparate forms prevail. One of these forms has in its nature the hope of strengthening the family, the foundation, and the second by its degenerate nature weakens the family and the individuals within it while centralizing control in others. The latter of these forms could be called civil.

“The civil law reduces the unwilling freedman to his original slavery; but the laws of the Angloes judge once manumitted as ever after free.”²

Why is it believed that the civil law reduces a man to slavery and what is so different about the law of the Angloes? What do they mean civil law? Again, ‘civil’ contains the concept of subjection and duty to the will of a ruling body to which the individual is subject. While civil structures tend to create strong central government, they have a tendency to weaken the individual as he becomes more reliant upon the civil structures than upon his own power, knowledge and ability.
The word Civil is defined in several ways:

“1. Pertaining to a city or state, or to a citizen in his relations to his fellow citizens or to the state; within the city or state.”

An individual might be considered a citizen as an inhabitant but not within the jurisdiction of the civil state. It is also defined:

“2. Subject to government; reduced to order; civilized; not barbarous; -- said of the community.”

Being barbarous did not mean cruel or raging out of control but rather that one had not been reduced to a subject under a ruling body of the civil state. He was still a free man under the law of nature and nature’s God.

“3. Performing the duties of a citizen; obedient to government;....”

Civil law is not self creating. It is law within preexisting maxims of law sometimes called the Law of Nature or Divine Will. Without entering into civil societies in a position of subjectivity an inhabitant may have rights independent of the jurisdiction of the civil powers. Yet, in a wider sense those inherent rights may still be called civil rights in reference to that fundamental and original kingdom or dominion of God.

“Civil rights are such as belong to every citizen of the state or country, or, in a wider sense to all its inhabitants, and are not connected with the organization or the administration of government. They include the rights of property, marriage, protection by laws, freedom of contract, trial by jury, etc… as otherwise defined, civil rights are rights appertaining to a person in virtue of his citizenship in a state or community. Rights capable of being enforced or redressed in civil action. Also a term applied to certain rights secured to citizens of the United States by the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments to the constitution, and by various acts of congress made in pursuance thereof.”³

In this simple legal definition there is divine right not connected to the organization or administration of civil government and civil rights that are subject to the state and its ruling power such as Cain, Nimrod, Egypt and Rome.

“Civil Law Roman Law and Roman Civil Law are convertible phrases, meaning the same system of jurisprudence.”⁴

Originally criminal law was not statutory but based on Customary Law that resulted from the Law of Reason or the Law of Nature and Nature’s God, some times called Divine Will. This law was expressed in government documents like the Ten Commandments. Sometimes this was called common law which is not subject to statutes but has been the result of long understood concepts of right and wrong. Such systems were the rule not the exception and depended on the virtue, wisdom and justice of every man within society.

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