vantage of Cyrus' decree, and returned from Babylon, we find only three hundred and forty-one (Ez. ii, 40-42), or 350 (Neh. vii. 24-26) Levites came along with Zerubbabel. A few more, indeed, are mentioned in Neh. xii. 24-26; but they are very inconsiderable. Thus we see that many chose rather to remain at Babylon than return to Judea; and it is painful to observe, that even of those who did return, there were several whose hearts were not right with God. But they became sensible of the errors into which they had fallen, reformed the abuses which had crept in among them, and, as a token of obedience, signed with Nehemiah the national covenant (Neh. x. 9-13), and dwelt at Jerusalem, to influence others by their authority and example, ch. xi. 15—19.* V. The NETHINIM and STATIONARY MEN.

1. The Nethinim were persons given, as the name imports, to the priests and Levites, for performing the servile offices of the Tabernacle and the Temple, Josh. ix. 27. The first of this kind of persons were the Gibeonites, who imposed upon the Israelites by a false statement, and thus saved their lives, Josh. ix. 21-27. David and Solomon devoted to this service some of the persons taken in war, and "the strangers that were in the land," Ezra viii. 20; 2 Chr. ii. 17, 18. The latter amounted to 153, 600; 80,000 of whom became hewers of wood, and seventy thousand bearers of burdens, and were placed under 3600 of the chief of Solomon's officers, 1 Ki v. 16. Many of these returned from the captivity, evidently preferring to sustain the meanest offices in the house of God, rather than dwell in the tents of wickedness, Ez. ii. 58; viii. 20; Neh. iii. 26; vii. 46-60.

2. The stationary men we have had occasion to mention, in treating of the service of the sanctuary, whence it has been seen that they were the representatives at the temple of the twenty-four classes into which the Jewish nation was divided. The design of their appointment was to secure, virtually, the presence of the entire nation, when the daily sacrifices and worship were offered. There were twenty-four courses of these officers, each of which attended at the temple for a week, during which time it was neither lawful for them to wash their clothes, nor be trimmed by a barber. †

Lightfoot, Temple Service, ch. vii. s. 2. Jennings' Jewish Antiq. b. i.ch. 5 í Brown's Jewish Antiquities, vol. i. part. iii. s. 4; Beausobre, Introd. p. 90, 4to. + Lightfoot, Temple Service, ch. vii. sect. 3.

527

CHAPTER IX.

OF THE CORRUPTION OF RELIGION AMONG THE

JEWS.

SECTION I.

IDOLATROUS PRACTICES.

Excellency of the Mosaic code-Rise and progress of idolatryGroves and high places.

IT is impossible to take even a cursory survey of the Jewish religion, without being struck with its vast superiority over the most refined and exalted system adopted by the heathen nations of antiquity, even where these had borrowed most of their light from the sun of righteousness, which shone with such resplendent glory in Judea. Its principles were so congenial with the nature and character of man-his obligations and duties his wants and desires; its advantages so numerous and manifest; and its ritual, so fascinating and engaging, that it would seem almost impossible that its subjects should ever abandon it in favour of the disgusting rites and degrading superstitions of idolatrous worship. Nevertheless, it is a lamentable fact, that the people who were favoured with this revelation, and destined to be the preservers and teachers of the knowledge of the true God, at various periods of their history abandoned their temple and oracle-their religion and their God-to mix with the surrounding nations in the impurities of their worship; or else engrafted upon their pure and hallowing system of doctrines sundry idolatrous rites.

To trace the rise and progress of idolatry among the Jewish people, or even to enumerate the idols and idolatrous customs which were adopted by them, during the period of their history prior to the captivity, would greatly exceed the limits of this work. We can only observe, therefore, that the first palpable exhibition of a desire to relapse into idolatrous practices, was made under circumstances of the most aggravating

character, in the well known matter of the golden calf. Under the administration of the judges there was an awfuldegeneracy, from which they were to a considerable extent recovered during the government of Samuel and David.Towards the close of Solomon's reign, that monarch set a sad and a fatal example to his subjects, which soon spread through the whole length and breadth of the land, and ultimately subjected the two nations to a total deportation and captivity, which so far answered the design of God, in curing them of their idolatrous propensities, that in every subsequent period of their history they seem to have regarded it with the utmost abhorrence.

In sundry places of the Old Testament mention is made of the groves and high places which were dedicated to idolatrous purposes. In these places the Israelites are said to have "burnt incense and wrought wickedness, to provoke the Lord, as did the heathen" 2 Kings xvii. 9-13. For this reason no altar dedicated to Jehovah was allowed to be set up near them.*

SECTION II.

JEWISH SECTS.

I. The Sadducees. II. The Pharisees.-III. The Essenes.

Prior to the Babylonish captivity we have no information concerning the existence of any religious sects in the Jewish church. But in the time of the Maccabees it is thought, by some writers, that it was divided into two parties, the Zadi kim, or righteous, who observed only the written law of Moses: and the Chasidim, or Asideans—the pious-who superadded the constitutions and traditions of the elders. On this subject, however, considerable diversity of opinion prevails among the learned. We shall not attempt to hazard a conjecture, but rather pass on to notice the religious sects which existed

*Parkhurst has shewn, that in several passages of Scripture where we read of these groves, an idol or idols are meant, and not a collection of trees. This idea has been seized upon by Mr. Landseer, who has made some considerable progress towards tracing the origin, and identifying the form of these idols, in a very ingenious dissertation on an antique engraved cylinder, which has been ob tained in Syria, representing, among other things, an armillary and astronomical machine. See his Sabean Researches, Essay viii.

In the times of the New Testament history. Of these, the ›rincipal were the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Essenes. I. THE SADDUCEES. -The sect of the Sadducees derived ts origin from Sadoc, who flourished in the reign of Ptolemy 'hiladelphus, about 263 years before Christ. Sadoc was he pupil of Antigonus Sochæus, an eminent Jewish doctor, nd president of the Sanhedrin, who, in his lectures, inculcatd the reasonableness of serving God from the innate and ntrinsic excellence of the duty itself, and not from the servile rinciple of mercenary recompence. From this doctrine, Sadoc inferred that there was no future state, and that revards and punishments were confined to this life. Those vho espoused his sentiments obtained the name of Sadducees. Their creed is thus concisely expressed: "They say that here is no resurrection (Campbell, future life), neither angel or spirit." Hence that captious query, concerning the wonan who had survived seven husbands, which they addressed o our Lord for his solution, thinking to involve him in an nextricable dilemma. They disregarded all the traditions of he elders, and admitted, in our Saviour's time, only the five books of Moses, as proper to be read in the synagogues. They considered that God did not interfere in human affairs. Their numbers were inconsiderable, but among them were some of the most eminent persons in the state. Josephus has thus described them: "The Sadducees maintain, that the soul perishes with the body. They pay no regard to any prescriptions, except the injunctions of Scripture. They deem it a virtue to maintain disputes with the teachers of that wisdom which others espouse. Those who have adopted their tenets are but few, but those few are persons of the first distinction. Hardly any business of the state is transacted by them; for when they are invested with any civil office, it is entirely against their inclination, and solely through necessity; for then they conform to the measures of the Pharisees, otherwise the common people would never bear them.”

*

II. THE PHARISEES. -The Pharisees were the most distinguished and popular sect among the Jews. They first appeared about 140, B. C. They affected great mortification and abstraction from the world, imposed on themselves frequent stated fasts, and made long prayers at the corners of the streets. In fact, they were most ostentatiously religious, so far as outward observances went, but were inwardly consummate hypocrites. They believed in a future state of rewards and punishments, and therefore held the Sadducees in

*Prideaux, Connex. p. ii. b. 5. A. A. C. 107.

M M

the highest abhorrence. Their notion of the resurrection, however, was nothing more than the Pythagorean transmigration. They held the doctrine of predestination, and that all things were under the government of an irreversible fatality.* In fine, the scrupulous performance of a thousand trifling minutenesses made up their religion; the love and acquisition of power, and the reputation of superior sanctity, were the end and aim of all their actions: they had a form of godliness, but were strangers to its power; for they were under the dominion of the most detestable of all vices, spiritual pride and hypocrisy. + Josephus has given the following account of their tenets: "Now, the Pharisees live meanly, and despise delicacies in diet; and they follow the conduct of reason, and what that prescribes to them as good for them, they do. They also pay a respect to such as are in years, no are they so bold as to contradict them in any thing that they have introduced. And when they determine that all things are done by fate, they do not take away the freedom from men of doing as they think fit, since their notion is, that it hath pleased God to make a rule, whereby what he wills is done but so that the will of man can act virtuously or viciously.They also believe that souls have an immortal vigour in them, and that, under the earth, there will be rewards or punishments, according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life; and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison, but that the former shall have power to revive and live again. On account of which doctrines they are able to persuade the body of the people; and whatsoever these do about divine worship, prayers, and sacrifices, they perform according to their direction: insomuch, that the cities give great attestation to them, on account of their virtuous conduct, both in the actions of their lives, and their discourses."; The most considerable part of the religion of the Pharisees consisted in a scrupulous observance of the traditionary law, which was regarded by them as being of higher authority than the written law. The words of the Scribes," said they, "are lovely above the words of the law: for the words of the law are weighty and light, but the words of the Scribes are all weighty." Hence it was that our Saviour so frequently charged them with rendering the word of God of none effect by their traditions.

*Joseph. Ant. b. xiii. c. 10.

+ Harwood's Introduct. vol. i. p. 232.

Jewish Antiq. b. xviii. ch. 1. See further in Stackhouse's Hist. of the Bible b. vii. ch. 4; and Lightfoot's Harm, of the Evangel. sect. 23.