we are corrupt in our manners. For, most of the difference betwixt us and them does not proceed from our being more enlightened by Christianity, but from our being less guided by reason. The Christian religion did not introduce this great inequality of conditions, this disdain of labour, this eagerness for diversions, this authority of women and young people, this aversion from a simple and frugal life, which make us differ so much from the ancients. It would have been much easier to have made good Christians of those shepherds and ploughmen, which we see in their history, than of our courtiers, lawyers, or farmers of the revenue, and many others that spend their lives in an idle and discontented poverty.

Let it be observed, that I do not pretend to make a panegyric upon this people; but to give a very plain account, like that of travellers, who have seen far distant countries: I shall describe what is good, bad, or indifferent, just as it is, and only desire the reader to divest himself of all prejudice, that he may judge of these customs by good sense and right reason alone; to discard the ideas that are peculiar to his own age and country, and consider the Israelites in the circumstances of time and place wherein they lived; to compare them with their nearest neighbours, and by that means to enter into their spirit and maxims. We must indeed be entire strangers to history, not to see the great difference which distance of time and place occasions in people's manWe inhabit the same country which the ancient Britons, and afterward the Romans, dwelt in: and yet how much do we vary from both in their way of living; nay, even from that of our own countrymen, who lived seven or eight hundred years ago ?* And at present, what likeness is there be

ners.

*Who would imagine that the present inhabitants of Great Britain, who spend so much time and money in unmeaning, useless, and ridiculous modes of dress, are the descendants of a race of people, who, in the very same climate and land, went almost naked, not only during the scorching heats of summer, but also through the chilling blasts of winter? And yet, were more healthy, vigorous and robust thar: their present degenerate offspring,

tween our customs and those of the Turks, Indians, and Chinese? If then, we consider these two sorts of distance together, we shall be so far from being astonished, that they who lived in Palestine three thousand years ago, had customs different from ours, that we shall rather wonder if we find any thing in them alike.

We must not imagine, however, that these changes are regular, and always come on in the same space of time. Countries that are very near each other often differ widely in their religion and politics; as, at this day, Spain and Africa, which, under the Roman empire, had the same customs. On the contrary, there is now a great resemblance betwixt those of Spain and Germany, though there was then none. The same holds good in respect to the difference of times. They that are not acquainted with history, having heard it said, that the people of former ages were more simple than we, suppose the world is always growing more polite; and that the farther any one looks back into antiquity, the more stupid and ignorant he will find mankind to have been.

But it is not really so in countries that have been inhabited successively by different people: the revolutions that have happened there have always, from time to time, introduced misery and ignorance, after prosperity and good manners. So, Italy is now in a much better condition than it was eight hundred years ago. But eight hundred years before that, under the first Cæsars, it was happier, and in a more prosperous state than it is at present. It is true, if we go back eight hundred years more, near the time that Rome was founded, the same Italy will appear much poorer and less polished, though at that time very populous: and still the higher we ascend, it will seem more wretched and uncultivated. Nations have their periods of duration, like particular men. The most flourishing state of the Greeks was under Alexander; of the Romans, under Augustus; and of the Israelites, under Solomon.

We ought therefore to distinguish in every people, their beginning, their greatest prosperity, and their declension. In this manner I shall consider the Israelites, during all that space of time that they were a people, from the calling of Abraham, to the last destruction of Jerusalem. It contains more than two thousand years, which I shall divide into three periods, according to the three different states of this people. The first of the Patriarchs; the second of the Israelites, from their going out of Egypt to the Babylonish captivity; and the third, of the Jews, after they returned from captivity, to the promulgation of the gospel.

CHAPTER II.

Of the Patriarchs.*—Their Nobility.

THE patriarchs lived after a noble manner, in perfect freedom and great plenty, notwithstanding their way of living was plain and laborious. Abraham knew the whole succession of his ancestors, and no way lessened his nobility, since he married into his own family. He took care to provide a wife of the same race for his son, in whom were fulfilled all the promises that God had made to him: and Isaac taught Jacob to observe the same law.

The long lives of the fathers gave them an opportunity of educating their children well, and of making them serious and considerate betimes. Abraham

* Patriarch, from the Greek Tarpiapxns, which literally signifies the chief or head of a family. The term is applied properly to the progenitors of the Jewish people, and especially to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the twelve sons of the latter. The patriarchal government existed in the fathers of families and their first-born sons after them, and included the regal and sacerdotal authority; and not unfrequently the prophetic. This authority, which every first-born son exercised over all the widely extended branches of a numerous family, is termed in Scripture the birth-right. The patriarchal dispensation includes all the time from the creation of the world, till the giving of the law. The patriarchs are divided into classes, the antediluvian and postdiluvian: to the former belong Adam, Seth, Enoch, &c. To the latter Abram, Isaac, Jacob, &c.

lived more than a hundred years with Shem, and no doubt learned from him the state of the world before the deluge. He never left his father Terah, and was at least seventy years old when he lost him. Isaac was seventy-five when Abraham died, and, as far as we know, never went from him all that time.* It is the same with respect to the other patriarchs. Living so long with their fathers, they had the benefit of their experience and inventions. They prosecuted their designs, adhered firmly to their maxims, and became constant and uniform in their conduct. For it was a difficult matter to change what had been settled by men who were still alive; especially as the old men kept up their authority, not only over the youth, but also the elders that were not so old as themselves.

The remembrance of things past might be easily preserved by the bare relation of old men, who naturally love to tell stories of ancient times, and had so much leisure for it. By this means they had no great use for writing; and it is certain we find no mention of it before Moses. However difficult it may seem to conceive that so many calculations as he recites should have been preserved in the memory of men, as the age of all the patriarchs ;t the exact dates of the beginning and end of the flood ;‡ the dimensions of the ark,§ &c. yet there is no necessity for recurring to miracle and revelation. For it is probable that writing was found out before the deluge as we are sure musical instruments were, though not so necessary. But though Moses might have learned, in the common way, most of the facts which he has written, I believe, nevertheless, that he was influenced by the Holy Spirit to record these

* The author follows here the chronology of archbishop Usher, who supposes that Shem did not die till 150 years after the birth of Abraham. But Usher leaves the second Cainan out of his chronology, whom the Septuagint and St. Luke place between Arphaxad and SaThis second Cainan throws the birth of Abraham much farther

lah.

back.

† Gen. v. Gen. vii, 11. viii, 13. § Gen. vi, 15. || Gen. iv, 21.

facts, rather than others, and express them in terms most proper for the purpose.

Besides, the patriarchs took care to preserve the memory of considerable events by setting up altars and pillars, and other lasting monuments. Thus, Abraham erected altars in the different places where God had appeared to him.* Jacob consecrated the stone which served him for a pillow while he had the mysterious dream of the ladder;† and the heap of stones, which was witness to his covenant with Laban, he called Galeed. Of this kind was the sepulchre of Rachel; the well called Beersheba ;§ and all the other wells mentioned in the history of Isaac. Sometimes they gave new names to places. The Greeks and Romans relate the same of their heroes, the eldest of whom lived near the times of the patriarchs. Greece was full of their monuments: Æneas, to mention no others, left some in every place that he passed through in Greece, Sicily, and Italy.

The very names of the patriarchs were besides a sort of more simple and familiar monuments. They signified some remarkable circumstance of their birth, or particular favour received from God. So they were in effect a short history.** For they took care to explain the reason of these names to their children, and it was hardly possible to pronounce them with

*Gen. xii, 8. xiii, 18. † Gen. xxviii, 18. Gen. xxxi, 48. § Gen. xxvi, 33. || Pausan. passim. Dion. Hal. lib. i. ¶ Virgil. Æn. passim. ** Such, for instance, as ABRAM from ab, a father, and ram, high; called afterward Abraham 28 a father of multitudes, the being inserted before ; for Dham, is a contraction of hamon, a multitude.

המון

PELEG, from palag, he divided for in his days, says the ext, Gen. x, 25, the earth ( nipilegah) was divided.

MANASSES, the son of Joseph, signifies forgetting, from

nashah,

he was forgetful, for said he, Gen. xli, 51, God hath made me forget (nashshani) all my labours, and my father's house.

EPHRAIM, fruitful, from pharah, he was fruitful; for said Joseph his father, Hiphrani, God hath made me fruitful in the land of my affliction. Gen. xli, 52.

JOSEPH, addition or increase, from D Yasaph, he added or increased; because said his mother Yoseph Jehovah, the Lord

shall add to me another son. Gen. xxx, 25.