perfect being. He that wills the good of his creatures, who best knows in what that good consists, and by what means it is to be accomplished, and who is fully assured of the final issue, must enjoy the perfect bliss of this blissful attribute! He is not only acquainted with, but he induces and approves of those temporary scenes, which distress his creatures, and excite their impatient and murmuring lamentations; for he knows it is right that they should suffer. Their sufferings are the efficacious means of improving their virtues, of forming their moral characters to excellencies which he loves, and which he will ultimately reward with permanent felicity.

NOTE D.

After "Were to take place." Page 105.

That these miraculous interferences would exist as long as they were necessary, there can be no reason to doubt. But that they did take place periodically, does not appear. It is possible that the disobedient conduct of the Hebrews, might have made them unworthy of the honour. It is manifest, however, that in obedience to the law, they omitted cultivating the land every seventh year. For mong the privileges granted by Alexander in his inerview with the high priest, we find that they were exempted from paying tribute every seventh year: and when the Samaritans requested the same exemption, they lleged, that "in that year they did not till their lands.' -ee Joseph, Vol. II. in loco.

Hh

NOTE E.

After "He went out from Pharaoh in great anger." Page 173.

A transposition of some verses in this and the preceding chapter, is evidently necessary. In the tenth chapter of Exodus, verses 28, 29, we are informed, that Pharaoh said unto Moses, "Get thee from me, take heed to thyself, see my face no more; for in that day thou seest my face thou shalt die; and Moses said, thou hast spoken well, I will see thy face again no more." Yet from the fourth to the eighth verse of chap. 11, it should appear that Moses had a subsequent interview. The two last verses of the preceding chapter, should manifestly be placed towards the close of the eighth verse of the tenth chapter.

NOTE F.

After "Be burnt as a memorial." Page 186.

A similar attention to the gradations of culpability is observable in the laws respecting man-slaughter. Cities of refuge were appointed at convenient distances, to the nearest of which the undesigning agent might flee. Such dreadful accidents are frequently the result of inadvertency; for which this injunction was a proper punishment. The injunction also paid due attention to the irritated state of mind, of the parties immediately concerned; while it protected the object from their revengeful pursuits.*

* Deut. xix. 1-13.

Again, if any one was found murdered in the fields, the perpetrator remaining unknown, a law was instituted, in order to excite universal horror at such atrocious crimes, which, to a certain degree, seemed to implicate the adjacent districts in the offence. The elders and judges of the city nearest to the spot, were ordered to slay an heifer, in a solemn manner, wash their hands over it, and make a public declaration of their inno

By these wise and salutary edicts, connected with the paucity of capital offences which were admitted into the Jewish code, this rude people were gradually civilized into a benevolent regard for human life; an indifference to which, respecting others, is no equivocal indication of a savage temper. The impressions thus made, might also be the means of preserving the Israelites from the sin of offering human sacrifices to idols, even in the state of their greatest degeneracy.

NOTE G.

After "Guilty of delusion." Page 195.

When the author commenced his inquiries into the Jewish history, for the purposes of this disquisition, he resolved to confine himself to that alone, until he had exhausted the train of his own ideas relative to the subject, without calling in the aid of any other writer. He was apprehensive that his mind might be embarrassed by the diversities of their respective plans, or be seduced into some particular hypothesis by the partiality of their

* Deut. xix. 1-9.

statements. But it gives him much satisfaction to find, that there is, in the essential points, a coincidence between his sentiments, and those of the most distinguished vindicators of the Jewish dispensation. To these authors he must refer, for minuter statements of some particulars than it was consistent with his plan to give. In the excellent dissertation of Mr. M. Lowman on the civil government of the Hebrews, the reader will find ample and satisfactory information concerning the most important points of the Jewish history particularly concerning the distribution of territories; the peculiar office of the Levitical order; the general government of the Hebrew nation; oracular communications; the equity of punishing the idolatrous Canaanites; and a vindication of several of the prohibitory laws of Moses, which have been censured as frivolous, by those who are not well disposed towards the legislator. Of the latter, we shall transcribe the following instances. “ However trifling some of the Mosaic laws may appear at first view, and unworthy the wisdom of God to enact them as laws, yet the case will appear quite otherwise, when they are considered as necessary provisions against the danger of idolatry. The law, for instance, that appoints, Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard, will appear directions of importance, when it was to prevent a magical custom of idolatrous priests, who made this sort of cutting off their hair and their beards, essential to their worship; and used them as things of conse quence, in order to procure from their idols the several blessings they desired and prayed for. In like

manner, we may easily perceive a reason, why the law should direct, neither shall a garment mingled of linen and coollen come upon thee, when we understand, that such mixed garments of linen and woollen, were the proper habits of idolatrous priests; and were supposed to have some powerful magical virtue in them. For the same reason, we may easily understand the wisdom of appointing by law, that the woman shall not wear that which appertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment; for all that do so are abomination to the Lord thy God; when it was an idolatrous custom of their neighbours that men ought to stand before the star of Venus in the flowered garments of women; and women were to put on the armour of men before the star of Mars."*

We might adduce from profane writers, innumerable instances of the gross immorality that was encouraged by pagan worship. It was absolutely the consecration of vice. It authorized and commanded every enormity. The rites observed in the worship of Bacchus, Osiris, Ceres, and Venus, were too obscene to be stated in popular language, and their very flagrancy prevents their exposure. The Phalli and Myll, favourite rites in the worship of those deities, are thus described; "tum privatim, tum publicè, lignea virilia thyrsis alligata, per eam solemnitatem gestabant, fuit enim Phallus vocatum, membrum virile." (Shædius de diis Germanis.)

Heraclides of Syracuse says, 66 ex sesamo et melle fingi pudenda muliebra, quæ per ludos et spectacula circumferebantur, et in tota Sicilia vocabantur Mylli." Cicero accuses the poets of giving the following cha

*See Dissert. page 18.