of the Julian period, which was the thirty-third year of his age, reckoning from the beginning of the year next after that of his birth, according to the vulgar æra; and the said passover full moon was on the third day of April. Phlegon informs us that in the 202d Olympiad, or 4746th year of the Julian period, there was an eclipse the same as this mentioned here, which could be no other than this; for an ordinary one never totally hides the sun, from any one part of the earth, above four minutes. Besides, it must have been miraculous, because no eclipse ever happens at full moon, it being at that time in the opposite side of the heavens." One is pleased to hear the sentiments of a person so well qualified to judge.

PART X.

LAWS OF THE JEWS, AND THEIR SANCTIONS.

THE laws of the Jews are of three kinds, the Moral, Ceremonial, and Judicial; and they claim our attention on account of their intrinsic worth, great antiquity, and divine authority. Let us then attend to them in succession.

SECT. I.

The Moral Law.

Clearly revealed to our first parents; became obscured through the prevalence of sin; was promulgated anew from Mount Sinai.

had they reBut their apo

THE Moral law is contained in the ten commandments, which are a summary of that law of nature which was written originally on the heart of our first parents. It was then clear and distinct, and capable of being observed by them, mained in their state of innocence. stasy obscured it, and it became less and less legible, in the hearts and lives of their posterity; till, at the flood, all flesh had corrupted their way, and the imaginations of their hearts were only evil continually. It was then that God appeared in a visible manner, to punish the universal depravity, and place the subsequent generations of men in more favourable circumstances. He saw that the

rays of knowledge had diverged so much, and become so faint, that they were incapable of guiding men in the way of duty. The light of prophecy, indeed, had been gathering strength, among the few who were favoured of the Lord; but the light of the moral law had become completely darkened, among the multitude, through the ignorance and corruption which were in them. Their fate was therefore fixed. A universal deluge destroyed those who were too wicked to reform; and from Noah and his family, as from a new centre, proceeded the generations of men, the chain of prophecy, and the republication of religion. But Noah and his family stood in very different circumstances from our first progenitor. He himself was indeed a pattern of excellence, setting a comparatively perfect example of piety, to the generation before and after the flood; but it was neither as the federal head of his posterity, nor free from inconsistency. He, who had been firm as a rock, in the midst of a corrupt and degenerate age, fell in solitude, and was guilty of drunkenness; whilst his family but too soon showed the revival of those vices which had been fatal to the antediluvians.

We need not trace minutely the progress of ini. quity, between the times of Noah and the giving of the law; but every one in the least conversant with the subject will be ready to acknowledge, that, whatever progress the nations made in science and the arts, they made none in religion and morals. Having left the sublime doctrine of the Unity of God, they created to themselves numberless local deities. The light of revelation accord

ingly became again obscured; and, though the chain of prophecy had acquired strength by new revelations after the flood, which served to con firm the faith of the pious; the duties which mankind owed to God and their neighbour were generally neglected. Insomuch, that when the Israelites left Egypt, the state before the flood had nearly returned; darkness had covered the earth, and gross darkness the people; so that it became the divine Majesty to appear anew, and show that there was a God who ruled in the earth. Hence those signs which he performed in Egypt, and mighty works in the field of Zoan; where he vanquished the pretended deities of the heathen; brought his people from thence, with a strong hand, and outstretched arm; led them triumph antly by a pillar of fire and of cloud; divided the Red Sea; completely discomfited their enemies, and carried them into the wilderness, to receive a new system of instruction, and place them as a lamp to give light to the nations. There God appeared in a visible manner; delivered in awful majesty, and with an audible voice, from the top of Mount Sinai, the ten commandments; wrote them with his own finger on two tables of stone," and ordered them to be kept as a sacred deposit. Thus was God pleased to give to man a more sure directory for duty, than that of tradition; which, at best, was uncertain, even when aided by the general longevity of the patriarchs, and visible appearances of the divine Majesty; and was then

a Orpheus seems to have heard of these; for, Fragmenta ascribed to him, and entitled Пg διπλακα θεσμον, vers. 33, 34.

in the first of the say, he calls them

become doubly so by the contracted limits of human life. On the written word, therefore, were they called to depend; to the law and to the testimony were they bound to resort. It is needless, however, to dwell on the meaning of the dif ferent precepts in the decalogue, since they are generally known; but we ought to notice the very great importance in which these precepts were held by Jehovah, since they were selected by him, and delivered in so public and solemn a manner. Indeed, when rightly explained, in connexion with the principles from which they proceed, they are a summary of every religious and moral duty. Nor should it be forgotten, that they are universally and perpetually binding; for, although our Saviour came to abolish the ceremonial and judicial laws, he came to confirm and fulfil that which is moral.

SECT. II.

The Ceremonial Law.

1st, Taught the Jews the leading doctrines of religion, in a sensible and impressive manner. 2d, Served to preserve them from idolatry-by removing the principles which supported it--by giving them a full and perfect ritual of their own-by appointing certain marks to distinguish them from idolaters-by restricting most of their rites to particular places, persons, and times-by prohibiting too familiar an intercourse with the heathen nations—and by the

a In Doddridge's Lectures, appendix to Prop. cxxvi. is an abridgment of the arguments to prove that Jesus Christ is the Jehovah, who appeared to the patriarchs, delivered the law from Mount Sinai, and was worshipped by the Israelites: and in Principal Hill of St. Andrews' Lectures in Divinity, book iii. chapter v. the same argument is beautifully and forcibly illustrated.