CHRIST nor his apostles cast any reproaches upon them on that account. But because they received several other doctrines, which it is of some importance to know, besides those contained in these thirteen articles, I shall therefore give an account of them, beginning with that which relates to the birth of man.

The Rabbins acknowledge, that there is in man a fund of corruption; and the Talmud speaks of original sin thus, "We ought not to be surprised that the sin of Eve and Adam was so deeply engraven, and that it was as it were sealed with the king's signet, that it might be thereby transmitted to all their posterity; it was because all things were finished the day that Adam was created, and he was the perfection and consummation of the world; so that when he sinned, all the world sinned with him. We partake of his sin, and share in the punishment of it, but not in the sins of his descendants."

The Rabbins teach, that the wounds which were made in man by sin, will be cured by the Messiah; but they say there will be two Messiahs, one of which shall be put to death, and the other shall appear with glory. As to the time of his coming, they acknowledge that their fathers believed that the space which the world was to last was six thousand years; that appears to be this, that they had the law and the prophets read to them every week in their synagogues after the captivity, which they had not before: for they had no syna. gogues till after it. Prid. Con. P. 1. B. 6. Under the year 444, p. 559 of the 8vo Edition.

of these God appointed two thousand for the law of nature, two thousand for the law of Moses, and two thousand for the Messiah ; and that, according to this account, the Messiah must have come much about the same time that JESUS CHRIST was born and died: but, say they, the iniquities of men, which are increased ad infinitum, have obliged GoD to let a great part of this last two thousand years pass away before the coming of the Messiah. And they now forbid the making of any computation of the years of his coming.

The Jews hate all the rest of mankind; they even think themselves obliged to kill them, unless they submit to the precepts given to Noah; and no body is with them their neighbour but an Israelite. And what praises soever they may give to the law of Moses, yet they think it lawful for them to break it to save their lives. They seldom make use of the name of God in their oaths; when they do, it makes them inviolable but when they swear by the creatures, they do not look on those as sacred; nor do they make any scruple of breaking them: and this gave occasion to JESUS CHRIST and his apostles to forbid the use of all sorts of swearing, in order thereby to correct that

h

As this is an avowed sentiment of all the ancient and modern Jews, (see page 270) we may see how dangerous it would be to permit them to have any rule or influence in any nation under the sun. Had they strength and authority, their career would be like that of Mohammed, every man must be butchered who would not submit to be circumBised. Matt. v. 34.

horrid abuse of oaths which was common among the Jews, when the name of GoD was. not in them.

CHAP. VII.

Some Account of the ancient Samaritans.

AS the history of this singular people is so intimately connected with that of the ancient Israelites, it may not be improper to give a short account of them in this place.

- About the year of the world 3295, 709 before the Christian æra, Sennacherib king of Assyria, having failed in his attempts upon Judea, and becoming cruel and tyrannical even among his own people, in consequence of his disappointment, was slain by his two eldest sons, Adramelech and Sharezar while worshipping in the house of his god Nisroch. The parricides having fled, Esarhaddon the third son, assumed the reins of government in the Assyrian empire.' After he had fully settled his authority in Babylon, he began to set his heart on the recovery of what had been lost to the empire of the Assyrians, in Syria and Palestine, on the destruction of his father's army in Judea. Having gathered together a great army, he marched into the land of Israel, and took captive all those who were the remains of the former captivity (afew excepted, i 2 Kings xix. 37.

who escaped into the mountains, &c.) and carried them away into Babylon and Assyria.* As the land was in danger of becoming entirely desolate through lack of inhabitants, he brought colonies from Babylon, Cutha, Ava, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and established them in the cities of Samaria, instead of those whom he had carried into captivity.' And thus ten tribes which had separated from the house of David were brought to an utter destruction, and could never afterwards assume any political consequence.

It appears that some considerable time must have elapsed from the captivity of the Israelites of Samaria, before the above heathen colonies were brought in; for we find immediately on their settling they were much infested with lions, commissioned by the LORD to be a scourge to these idolaters," and which we may suppose, had multiplied greatly after the desolation of the land, The king of Babylon being told that it was because they worshipped not the God of the country that they were plagued with these ferocious animals, ordered that one of the captive Jewish priests should be sent back, to teach these new settlers the manner of the GoD of the land;" i. e. how to worship the God of Israel, as it was an ancient opinion among the heathens, that each district and country had its peculiar and tutelary deity. A priest was accordingly sent back, who took 1 2 Kings xvii.

* 1 Chron. xxxii. 21. Isai.xxxviii. 38. 24. Ezra iv. 2, 10.

2 Kings xvii. 25.

" Ibid. v. 26.

up his residence at Beth-el, and there established the worship of the true GoD, and the heathens incorporated this worship with that which they paid to their idols. The few remaining Jews soon become miserably corrupted both in their manners and religion; and while JEHOVAH was feared because of his supposed superior influence in that land, all the other gods of the Babylonians, Cuthites, Hamathites, Avites, and Sepharvites, had divine honours paid to them.

This monstrous mixture of idolatry with the worship of the true God, continued for about 300 years, till the building of the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim, by Sanballat the Horonite, about A. M. 3595. B. C. 409. As the Jewish priesthood had been greatly corrupted by impure connexions, and heathenish alliance, Sanballat found no difficulty to procure a priest, a regular descendant of the house of Aaron, to officiate in the schismatical temple which he had lately, erected for one of the sons of Joiada the highpriest, whom Josephus calls Manasseh, having married the daughter of Sanballat, and refusing to separate from her, when Nehemiah insisted on all the Jews to put away their strange wives, or to depart the country, Manasseh fled to Samaria, and there became highpriest of the temple on Mount Gerizim, built by his father-in-law, Samaria now became a common asylum for refractory Jews; for all who had violated the law by eating forbidden meats, &c. and were Antiq. B. xi. c. 7.