Petrus Cunaeus

This state was neither a monarchy nor an oligarchy nor a democracy, but a republic, whose senate—the Sanhedrin—and magistrates, including judges and priests, enforced and executed divinely ordained laws in ordinary civic situations.

[1] Cunaeus was concerned that the Dutch Republic might fall as Athens and Rome had fallen, as a result of high living and selfish bickering among the leadership.

As a model for his nation that would prevent such a calamity, he described a Hebrew republic in which "the counsels of all provided for the safety of all; and the Cities, which were many, did not every one aim at its own dominion, but all used their best endeavors to defend the public Liberty.

"[8] The Hebrew Republic, as Cunaeus saw it, was a virtuous community of republican small-hold farmers, kept that way by the Biblical law that every fiftieth (Jubilee) year all land transactions become null with the property returning to the family of the original owner.

In this way, "all were equally provided for; which is the prime care of good Governours in every common-wealth," a system that insures that "the wealth of some might not lead to the oppression of the rest; nor the people change their course, and turn their minds form their innocent labors to any new and strange employment.