ever been considered as a lively emblem of that moral taint or corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam*; as the sacrifices, which were to be offered by the healed leper, prefigured that spotless Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.

CHAPTER VI.

ON THE CORRUPTIONS OF RELIGION AMONG THE JEWS.

I. On the Idolatry of the Jews. II. Jewish Sects mentioned in the New Testament. - III. Extreme Corruption of the Jewish People at the Time of Christ's Birth.

I. IDOLATRY of the Jews.

Idolatry is the superstitious worship of idols or false gods. From Gen. vi. 5., compared with Rom. i. 23., there is every reason to believe that it was practised before the flood; and this conjecture is confirmed by the apostle Jude (ver. 4.), who, describing the character of certain men in his days that denied the only Lord God, adds, in the eleventh verse of his Epistle, Woe unto them, for they are gone into the way of Cain; whence it may be inferred that Cain and his descendants were the first who threw off the sense of a God, and worshipped the creature instead of the Creator. The heavenly bodies were the first objects of idolatrous worship, and Mesopotamia and Chaldæa were the countries where it chiefly prevailed after the deluge, whence it spread into Canaan, Egypt, and other countries. Although Moses, by the command and instruction of GOD, had given to the Israelites such a religion as no other nation possessed, and notwithstanding all his laws were directed to preserve them from idolatry, yet, so wayward were the

* Article IX. of the Confession of the Anglican church.

Israelites, that, almost immediately after their departure from Egypt, we find them worshipping idols. (Exod. xxxii. 1. Psal. cvi. 19, 20. Acts vii. 41-43.) Soon after their entrance into the land of Canaan, they adopted various deities that were worshipped by the Canaanites, and other neighbouring nations (Judges ii. 13. viii. 33.); for which base ingratitude they were severely punished. And, after the division of the two kingdoms, it is well known that, with the exception of a few short intervals, both the sovereigns and people of Israel were wholly given to idolatry: nor were the people of Judah exempt from the worship of strange gods, as the frequent reproofs of the prophets abundantly testify. At length, however, become wiser by the severe discipline they had received, the tribes, that returned into their native country from the Babylonian captivity, wholly renounced idolatry; and thenceforth uniformly evinced the most deeply-rooted aversion from all strange deities and foreign modes of worship. This great reformation was accomplished by Ezra and Nehemiah, and the eminent men who accompanied or succeeded them; but, in the progress of time, though the exterior of piety was maintained, the " power of godliness" was lost; and we learn from the New Testament, that, during our Saviour's ministry, the Jews were divided into various religious parties, which widely differed in opinion, and pursued each other with the fiercest animosity and with implacable hatred.

II. Of these SECTS and their respective tenets, to which there are frequent allusions in the New Testament, we are now to give a concise account.

1. The sect of the SADDUCEES derived its name from Sadok, a pupil of Antigonus Sochæus, president of the sanhedrin or great council; who flourished about two hundred and sixty years before the Christian era. They disregarded all the traditions and unwritten laws which the Pharisees prized so highly, and professed to consider the Scriptures as the only source and rule of the Jewish

religion. They denied the existence of angels and spirits, considered the soul as dying with the body, and consequently admitted of no future state of rewards and punishments. The tenets of this sect, which was small in point of numbers, were not so acceptable to the people as those of the Pharisees.

2. The PHARISEES are supposed to have appeared not long after the Sadducees. They were the most numerous, distinguished, and popular sect among the Jews. They derived their name from the Hebrew word Pharash, which signifies separated or set apart, because they separated themselves from the rest of the Jews to superior strictness in religious observances. They boasted that, from their accurate knowledge of religion, they were the favourites of heaven; and thus, trusting in themselves that they were righteous, despised others. (Luke xi. 52. xviii. 9. 11.)

Though they professed to esteem the written books of the Old Testament as the sources of the Jewish religion, yet they also attributed great and equal authority to traditional precepts, relating principally to external rites. They held the soul to be immortal, and the doctrine of the resurrection of the body; but they believed that all things were controlled by fate. They rigidly interpreted the letter of the Mosaic Law, but not unfrequently violated its spirit by their traditional and philosophical expositions. They were zealous in making proselytes; and their professed sanctity gave them great influence among the common people, especially with the female part of the community. Their general hypocrisy and profligacy are severely arraigned by Jesus Christ.

3. The ESSENES, who were the third principal sect among the Jews, differed in many respects from the Pharisees and Sadducees, both in doctrine and in practice. They were divided into two classes: (1.) The practical, who lived in society (and some of whom were married), though, it appears, with much circumspection. These dwelt in cities and their neighbourhoods, and ap

plied themselves to husbandry and other innocent occupations. (2.) The contemplative Essenes, who were also called Therapeutæ or Physicians, from their application principally to the cure of the diseases of the soul, devoted themselves wholly to meditation, and avoided living in great towns as unfavourable to a contemplative life. But both classes were exceedingly abstemious, exemplary in their moral deportment, averse from profane swearing, and most rigid in their observance of the Sabbath. They held, among other tenets, the immortality of the soul (though they denied the resurrection of the body), the existence of angels, and a state of future rewards and punishments. They believed every thing to be ordered by an eternal fatality or chain of causes. Though they are not mentioned in the New Testament, they are supposed to be referred to in Col. ii. 18. 21. 23.; and the contemplative Essenes are supposed to have been intended by those who in Matt. xix. 12. are said to have made themselves Eunuchs for the Kingdom of God's sake. 4. The SCRIBES and LAWYERS, who are frequently mentioned in the Gospels, are usually classed among Jewish sects. The Scribes had the charge of transcribing the sacred books, of publicly interpreting the more difficult passages, and of deciding in cases which grew out of the ceremonial law. They possessed great influence as well as the Lawyers or private teachers of the law.

5. The SAMARITANS are generally considered as a Jewish sect: their origin and tenets have already been noticed in p. 113.

6. The HERODIANS were a political faction, the partisans of Herod, misnamed the Great, from whom they derived their name, and with whom they co-operated in all his political and time-serving schemes, to conciliate the favour of the Romans.

7. The GALILEANS were the followers of Judas the Gaulonite or Galilæan, whose tenets they embraced and acted upon. They held, that tribute was due to God alone, and consequently ought not to be paid to the

Romans; and that religious liberty and the authority of the divine laws were to be defended by force of arms. In other respects their doctrines appear to have been the same as those of the Pharisees.

The ZEALOTS, so often mentioned in Jewish history, appear to have been the followers of this Judas: and it has been supposed, that the JUST MEN, whom the Pharisees and Herodians sent to entangle Jesus in his conversation, were members of this sect. (Matt. xxii. 15, 16. Mark xii. 13, 14. Luke xx. 20.)

8. The SICARII, noticed in Acts xxi. 38., were assassins, who derived their name from their using poniards bent like the Roman sica, which they concealed under their garments, and privately stabbed the objects of their malice.

III. The CORRUPTION of the JEWISH PEOPLE, both in religion and morals, in the time of Christ, sufficiently appears from the censures of Jesus Christ, which are to be found in the four Gospels. The evidence of the sacred writers is confirmed by the testimony of profane writers, especially Josephus the Jewish Historian, from whom we learn that the corruption and profligacy of the chief priests and other distinguished leaders pervaded the priests; and that from them the moral and religious contamination had spread to the lowest classes of the people, who were immersed in ignorance and vice, and cherished the most supercilious contempt and bitter hatred towards the Gentiles. So great was their profligacy in the last period of their commonwealth, that Josephus has recorded it as his opinion, that if the Romans had delayed any longer to have come against them, the city (Jerusalem) would either have been swallowed up by an earthquake, overwhelmed by a deluge, or destroyed by fire from heaven as Sodom was: for that generation was far more enormously wicked than those who suffered these calamities.*

*De Bell. Jud. lib. v. c.13. § 6.