equally repugnant to the institutions of that great lawgiver and to the dictates of right reason, and showed them to be a tribe of melancholy and wrongheaded enthusiasts."

The moral

these sects.

XI. None of these sects, indeed, seemed to have the interests of real and true piety at heart; nor were their principles and discipline at all adapted to the doctrine of advancement of pure and substantial virtue. The Pharisees courted popular applause by a vain ostentation of pretended sanctity, and an austere method of living, while in reality they were strangers to true holiness, and were inwardly defiled with the most criminal dispositions, with which our Saviour frequently reproaches them. They also treated with more veneration the commandments and traditions of men, than the sacred precepts and laws of God. The Sadducees, by denying a future state of rewards and punishments, removed, at once, the most powerful incentives to virtue, and the most effectual restraints upon vice, and thus gave new vigour to every sinful passion, and a full encouragement to the indulgence of every irregular desire. As to the Essenes, they were a fanatical and superstitious tribe, who placed religion in a certain sort of seraphic indolence, and, looking upon piety to God as incompatible with any social attachment to men, dissolved, by this pernicious doctrine, all the great bonds of human society.

The multitude sunk in superstition,

tion.

XII. While then such darkness, such errors and dissensions prevailed among those, who assumed the character and authority of persons distinguished by their superior sanctity and wisdom, it will not and corrup be difficult to imagine, how totally corrupt the religion and morals of the multitude must have been. They were accordingly, sunk in the most deplorable ignorance of God, and of divine things; and had no notion of any other way of rendering themselves acceptable to the Supreme Being, than by sacrifices, washings, and the other external rites and ceremonies of the Mosaic law. Hence proceeded that dissolution of manners, and that profligate wickedness, which prevailed among the Jews, during Christ's ministry upon earth. And hence the Divine Saviour compares that people to a flock of sheep,

p_The principal writers, who have given accounts of the Theraputæ, are mentioned by Jo. Albert Fabricius in the ivth chapter of his Lux Salutaris Evangelii toto orbi exoriens, p. 55.

q Matt. xxiii. 13, 14, &c.
VOL. I.

7

which wandered without a shepherd; and their doctors to men, who, though deprived themselves of sight, yet pretended to show the way to others."

XIII. To all these corruptions, both in point of doctrine

a source of

many errors among the Jews.

and practice, which reigned among the Jews at The Cal bala, the time of Christ's coming, we may add the attachment which many of them discovered to the tenets of the oriental philosophy concerning the origin of the world, and to the doctrine of the Cabbala, which was undoubtedly derived from thence. That considerable numbers of the Jews had imbided the errors of this fantastic system, appears evidently, both from the books of the New Testament, and from the ancient history of the Christian church; and it is also certain, that many of the Gnostic sects were founded by Jews. Those among that degenerate people, who adopted this chimerical philosophy, must have differed vastly from the rest in their opinions concerning the God of the Old Testament, the origin of the world, the character and doctrine of Moses, and the nature and ministry of the Messiah; since they maintained, that the Creator of this world was a being different from the Supreme God, and that his dominion over the human race was to be destroyed by the Messiah. Every one must see that this enormous system was fruitful of errors, destructive of the very foundations of Judaism.

God corrupt

ed also by

tions.

XIV. If any part of the Jewish religion was less disfigured The external and corrupted than the rest, it was certainly the worship of form of external worship which was established vain rites and by the law of Moses. And yet many learned men human laven have observed, that a great variety of rites were introduced into the service of the temple, of which no traces are to be found in the sacred writings. The institution of these additional ceremonies was manifestly owing to those changes and revolutions, which rendered the Jews more conversant with the nations round about them, than they had formerly been. For when they saw the sacred rites of the Greeks and Romans, they were taken with several of the ceremonies that were used in the worship of the heathen deities, and did not hesitate to adopt them in the service of the true God, and add them as an ornament to the rites which they had received by divine appointment.'

r Matt. x. 6. xv. 24, 25. John ix. 39.

s See Joh. Chr. Wolf. Biblioth. Ebraica, vol. ii. lib. vii. cap. 1. § ix. p. 206.

t See the learned work of Spencer, De legibus Hebræorum, in the 4th book of

the corruption

in doctrine.

among the

xv. But whence such enormous degrees of corruption in that very nation which God had, in a peculiar manner, separated from an idolatrous world to be The causes of the depository of divine truth? Various causes and morals may be assigned, in order to give a satisfactory that reigned account of this matter. First, it is certain, that Jews." the ancestors of those Jews, who lived in the time of our Saviour, had brought from Chaldea, and the neighbouring countries, many extravagant and idle fancies, which were utterly unknown to the original founders of the nation." The conquest of Asia, by Alexander the Great, was also an event from' which we may date a new accession of errors to the Jewish system; since, in consequence of that revolution, the manners and opinions of the Greeks began to spread themselves among the Persians, Syrians, Arabians, and likewise among the Jews, who, before that period, were entirely unacquainted with letters and philosophy. We may further rank among the causes that contributed to corrupt the religion and manners of the Jews, their voyages into the adjacent countries, especially Egypt and Phenicia, in pursuit of wealth. For with the treasures of these corrupt and superstitious nations, they brought home also their pernicious errors, and their idle fictions, which were imperceptibly blended with their religious system. Nor ought we to omit, in this enumeration, the pestilential influence of the wicked reigns of Herod and his sons, and the enormous instances of idolatry, error, and licentiousness, which this unhappy people had constantly before their eyes in the religion and manners of the Roman governors and soldiers, which no doubt contributed much to the progress of their national superstition and corruption of manners. We might add here many more facts and circumstances, to illustrate further the matter under consideration; but these will be readily suggested to such as have the least acquaintance with the Jewish history from the time of the Maccabees.

XVI. It is indeed worthy of observation, that corrupted as the Jews were with the errors and superstitions Amidst this of the neighbouring nations, they still preserved a ruption, some zealous attachment to the law of Moses, and were remains of extremely careful that it should not suffer any di- be found.

piety were to

which he treats expressly of those Hebrew rites which were borrowed from the Gentile worship, vol. ii. p. 1086, edition of Cambridge.

u See Gale's observations on Jamblichus, De Mysteriis Egyptiorum, p. 206. Josephus acknowledges the same thing in his Jewish Antiquities, book iii. chap. vii. § 2.

minution of its credit or lose any the least degree of that veneration, that was due to its divine authority. Hence synagogues were erected throughout the province of Judea, in which the people assembled for the purposes of divine worship, and to hear their doctors interpret and explain the holy Scriptures. There were, beside, in the more populous towns, public schools, in which learned men were appointed to instruct the youth in the knowledge of divine things, and also in other branches of science." And it is beyond all doubt, that these institutions contributed to maintain the law in its primitive authority, and to stem the torrent of abounding iniquity.

The Samaritans.

XVII. The Samaritans, who celebrated divine worship in the temple that was built on mount Gerizim, lay under the burden of the same evils that oppressed the Jews, with whom they lived in the bitterest enmity, and were also, like them, highly instrumental in increasing their own calamities. We learn from the most authentic histories of those times, that the Samaritans suffered as much as the Jews, from troubles and divisions fomented by the intrigues of factious spirits, though their religious sects were yet less numerous than those of the latter. Their religion, also, was much more corrupted than that of the Jews, as Christ himself declares in his conversation with the woman of Samaria; though it appears, at the same time, that their notions concerning the offices and ministry of the Messiah, were much more just and conformable to truth than those which were entertained at Jerusalem. Upon the whole it is certain, that the Sa maritans mixed the profane errors of the Gentiles, with the sacred doctrines of the Jews, and were excessively corrupted by the idolatrous customs of the pagan nations.

w See Camp. Vitringa, De synagoga vetere, lib. iii. cap. v. p. 667, and lib. i. cap. v. p. 133. vii. p. 156.

x Christ insinuates, on the contrary, in the strongest manner, the superiority of the Jewish worship to that of the Samaritans, John iv. 22. See also on this head, 2 Kings xvii. 29. The passage to which Dr. Mosheim refers as a proof that the Samaritans had juster notions of the Messiah than the Jews, is the 25th verse of the chapter of St. John already cited, where the woman of Samaria says to Jesus, I know that Messiah cometh, which is called Christ; when he is come, he will tell us all things. But this passage seems much too vague to justify the conclusion of our learned historian. Beside the confession of one person, who may possibly have had some singular and extraordinary advantages, is not a proof that the nation in general entertained the same sentiments, especially since we know that the Samaritans had corrupted the service of God by a profane mixture of the grossest idolatries.

y Those who desire an exact account of the principal authors that have written concerning the Samaritans, will find it in the learned work of Jo. Gottlob Carpzovius, entited, Critica, S, Vet. Testam. part. ii. cap. iv. p. 595.

The state of

of Palestine.

XVIII. The Jews multiplied so prodigiously, that the narrow bounds of Palestine were no longer sufficient to contain them. They poured, therefore, the Jews ont their increasing numbers into the neighbouring countries, and that with such rapidity, that at the time of Christ's birth, there was scarcely a province in the empire, where they were not found carrying on commerce, and exercising other lucrative arts. They were maintained in foreign countries against injurious treatment and violence, by the special edicts and protection of the magistrates ;* and this, indeed, was absolutely necessary, since in most places, the remarkable difference of their religion and manners, from those of the other nations, exposed them to the hatred and indignation of the ignorant and bigoted multitude. All this appears to have been most singularlyand wisely directed by the adorable hand of an interposing Providence, to the end that this people, which was the sole depository of the true religion and of the knowledge of ane Supreme God, being spread abroad through the whole earth, might be every where, by their example, a reproach to superstition, contribute in some measure to check it, and thus prepare the way for that yet fuller discovery of divine truth, which was to shine upon the world from the ministry and gospel of the Son of God.

CHAPTER III.

CONCERNING THE LIFE AND ACTIONS OF JESUS CHRIST.

I. THE errors and disorders that we have now been considering, required something far above human The birth of wisdom and power to dispel and remove them, Jesus Christ. and to deliver mankind from the miserable state to which they were reduced by them. Therefore toward the conclusion of the reign of Herod the Great, the Son of God descended upon earth, and, taking upon him the human nature, appeared to men under the sublime characters of an infallible teacher, an all sufficient mediator, and a spiritual and immortal king. The place of his birth was Bethlehem, in the land of Palestine. The year in which it happened, has not hitherto been fixed with certainty, not

z See the account published at Leyden, 1712, by James Gronovius, of the Roman and Asiatic edicts in favour of the Jews, allowing them the free and secure exercise of their, religion throughout all the cities of the Lesser Asia.