legant mythology of the Greeks.* According to the maxims of universal toleration, the Romans protected a superstition which they despised. The polite Augustus condescended to give orders, that sacrifices should be offered for his prosperity in the temple of Jerusalem;t while the meanest of the posterity of Abraham, who should have paid the same homage to the Jupiter of the Capitol, would have been an object of abhorrence to himself and to his brethren. But the moderation of the conquerors was insufficient to appease the jealous prejudices of their subjects who were alarmed and scandalised at the ensigns of paganism, which necessarily introduced themselves into a Roman province. The mad attempt of Caligula to place his own statue in the temple of Jerusalem, was defeated by the unanimous resolution of a people who dreaded death much less than such an idolatrous profanation.‡ Their attachment to the law of Moses was equal to their detestation of foreign religions. The current of zeal and devotion, as it was contracted into a narrow channel, ran with the strength, and sometimes with the fury, of a torrent.

This inflexible perseverance, which appeared so odious or so ridiculous to the ancient world, assumes a more awful character, since Providence has deigned to reveal to us the mysterious history of the chosen people. But the devout and even scrupulous attachment to the Mosaic religion, so conspicuous among the Jews who lived under the second temple, becomes still more surprising, if it is compared with the stubborn incredulity of their forefathers. When the law was given in thunder from Mount Sinai; when the tides of the ocean, and the course of the planets were suspended for the convenience of the Israelites, and when temporal rewards and punishments were the immediate consequences of their piety or disobedience, they perpetually relapsed into rebellion against the visible majesty of their Divine King, placed the idols of the nations in the sanctuary of Jehovah, and imitated every fantastic ceremony that was practised in the tents of the Arabs,

* A Jewish sect, which indulged themselves in a sort of occasional con. formity, derived from Herod, by whose example and authority they had been seduced, the name of Herodians. But their numbers were so inconsiderable, and their duration so short, that Josephus has not thought them worthy of his notice. See Prideaux's Connection, vol. ii., p. 285.

+ Philo de Legatione. Augustus left a foundation for a perpetual sacrifice. Yet he approved of the neglect which his grandson Caius expressed towards the temple of Jerusalem. See Seuton. in August. c, 93, and Casaubon's notes on that passage.

sere.

Jussi a Caio Cæsare, effigiem ejus in templo locare arma potius sumpTacit. Hist. v. 9. Philo and Josephus gave a very circumstantial, but a very rhetorical, account of this transaction, which exceedingly perplexed the governor of Syria. At the first mention of this idolatrous proposal, King Agrippa fainted away, and did not recover his senses till the third day.

or in the cities of Phoenicia. As the protection of heaven was deservedly withdrawn from the ungrateful race, their faith acquired a proportionable degree of vigour and purity. The contemporaries of Moses and Joshua had beheld with careless indifference the most amazing miracles. Under the pressure of every calamity, the belief of those miracles has preserved the Jews of a later period from the universal contagion of idolatry; and in contradiction to every known principle of the human mind, that singular people seems to have yielded a stronger and more ready assent to the traditions of their remote ancestors, than to the evidence of their own senses.+

The Jewish religion was admirably fitted for defence, but it was never designed for conquest; and it seems probable that the number of proselytes was never much superior to that of apostates. The divine promises were originally made, and the distinguishing rite of circumcision was enjoined to a single family. When the posterity of Abraham had multiplied like the sands of the sea, the deity, from whose mouth they received a system of laws and ceremonies, declared himself the proper and as it were the national God of Israel; and with the most jealous care separated his favourite people from the rest of mankind. The conquest of the land of Canaan was accompanied with so many wonderful and with so many bloody circumstances, that the victorious Jews were left in a state of irreconcilable hostility with all their neighbours. They had been commanded to extirpate some of the most idolatrous tribes, and the execution of the divine will had seldom been retarded by the weakness of bumanity. With the other nations they were forbidden to contract any marriages or alliances, and the prohibition of receiving them into the congregation, which in some cases was perpetual, almost always extended to the third, to the seventh, or even to the tenth generation The obligation of preaching to the Gentiles the faith of Moses, had never been inculcated as a precept of the law, nor were the Jews inclined to impose it on themselves as a voluntary duty. In the admission of new citizens, that unsocial people was actuated by the selfish vanity of the Greeks, rather than by the generous policy of Rome. The descendants of Abraham were flattered by the opinion, that they alone were the heirs of the covenant, and they were apprehensive of diminishing the value of their inheritance, by sharing it too easily with the strangers of the earth. A larger acquaintance with mankind, extended their knowledge without correcting their prejudices; and whenever the God of Israel acquired any new

For the enumeration of the Syrian and Arabian deities, it may be observed, that Milton has comprised in one hundred and thirty very beautiful lines, the two large and learned syntagmas, which Selden had composed on that abstruse subject.

How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shown among them?' (Numbers, xiv. ii.) It would be easy, but it would be unbecoming, to justify the complaint of the deity from the whole tenor of the Mosaic history.

votaries, he was much more indebted to the inconstant humour of polytheism than to the active zeal of his own missionaries.* The religion of Moses seems to be instituted for a particular country as well as for a single nation; and if a strict obedience had been paid to the order, that every male, three times in the year, should present himself before the Lord Jehovah, it would have been impossible that the Jews could ever have spread themselves beyond the narrow limits of the promised land. That obstacle was indeed removed by the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem; but the most considerable part of the Jewish religion was involved in its destruction; and the pagans, who had long wondered at the strange report of an empty sanc tuary, were at a loss to discover what could be the object, or what could be the instruments, of a worship which was destitute of temples and of altars, of priests and of sacrifices. Yet even in their fallen state, the Jews, still asserting their lofty and exclusive privileges, shunned, instead of courting, the society of strangers. They still insisted with inflexible rigour on those parts of the law which it was in their power to practise. Their peculiar distinctions of days, of meats, and a variety of trivial though burdensome observances, were so many objects of disgust and aversion for the other. nations, to whose habits and prejudices they were diametrically opposite The painful and even dangerous rite of circumcision was alone capable of repelling a willing proselyte from the door of the synagogue.‡

Under these circumstances, Christianity offered itself to the world, armed with the strength of the Mosaic law, and delivered from the weight of its fetters. An exclusive zeal for the truth of religion, and the unity of God, was as carefully inculcated in the new as in the ancient system: and whatever was now revealed to mankind concerning the nature and designs of the Supreme Being, was fitted to increase their reverence for that mysterious doctrine. The divine authority of Moses and the prophets was admitted, and even established, as the firmest basis of Christianity. From the beginning of the world, an uninterrupted series of predictions had announced and prepared the long expected coming of the Messiah, who, in compliance with the gross apprehensions of the Jews, had been more frequently represented under the character of a king and conqueror, than under that of a prophet, a martyr, and the Son of God. By his expiatory sacrifice, the imperfect sacrifices of the temple were at once consummated and abolished. The cere monial law, which consisted only of types and figures, was succeeded by a pure and spiritual worship, equally adapted to all climates, as well as to * All that relates to the Jewish proselytes has been very ably treated by Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, 1 vi., c. 6, 7.

↑ See Exod. xxiv., 23, Deut. xvi, 16, the commentators, and a very sensible note in the Universal History, vol. 1, p. 603, edit. fol.

A second kind of circumcision was inflicted on a Samaritan or Egyptian proselyte. The sullen indifference of the Talmudists, with respect to the conversion of strangers, may be seen in Basnage, Hist, des Juifs, 1 vi., c. 6.

every condition of mankind; and to the initiation of blood, was substituted a more harmless initiation of water. The promise of divine favour, instead of being partially confined to the posterity of Abraham, was universally proposed to the freeman and the slave, to the Greek and to the barbarian, to the Jew and to the Gentile. Every privilege that could raise the proselyte from earth to heaven, that could exalt his devotion, secure his happiness, or even gratify that secret pride, which, under the semblance of devotion, insinuates itself into the human heart, was still reserved for the members of the Christian church; but at the same time all mankind was permitted, and even solicited, to accept the glorious distinction, which was not only proffered as a favour, but imposed as an obligation. It became the most sacred duty of a new convert to diffuse among his friends and relations the inestimable blessing which he had received, and to warn them against a refusal that would be surely punished as a criminal disobedience to the will of a benevolent but all-powerful deity.

The enfranchisement of the church from the bonds of the synagogue, was a work however of some time and of some difficulty. The Jewish converts, who acknowledged Jesus in the character of the Messiah foretold by their ancient oracles, respected him as a prophetic teacher of virtue and religion; but they obstinately adhered to the ceremonies of their ancestors, and were desirous of imposing them on the Gentiles, who continually augmented the number of believers. These Judaising Christians seemed to have argued with some degree of plausibility from the divine origin of the Mosaic law, and from the immutable perfections of its great author. They affirmed, that if the Being, who is the same through all eternity, had designed to abolish those sacred rites which had served to distinguish his chosen people, the repeal of them would have been no less clear and solemn than their first promulgation: that, instead of those frequent declarations, which either suppose or assert the perpetuity of the Mosaic religion, it would have been represented as a provisionary scheme intended to last only till the coming of the Messiah, who should instruct mankind in a more perfect mode of faith and of worship:* that the Messiah himself, and his disciples who conversed with him on earth, instead of authorising by their example the most minute observances of the Mosaic law, would have published to the world the abolition of those useless and obsolete ceremonies, without suffering Christianity to remain during so many years obscurely confounded among the sects of the Jewish church. Arguments like these appear to have been used in the defence of the expiring cause of the Mosaic law; but the industry of our learned divines has abundantly explained the ambiguous language of the Old Testament, and the ambiguous conduct of the apostolic teachers. It was proper gradually to unfold the system of the gospel, and to pronounce, with the utmost caution and tenderness, a sentence of condemnation so repugnant to the inclination and prejudices of the believing Jews.

These arguments were urged with great ingenuity by the Jew Orobio, and refuted with equal ingenuity and candour by the Christian Limborch. See the Amica Collatio (it well deserves that name), or account of the dispute between them.

CORRESPONDENCE.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT DIVORCE.

SIR, I have heard with intense satisfaction of the intended commencement of your periodical, and as you profess to open your pages to all comers, I beg a little space to call your attention to one of the evils of society that I think is worthy of your attention-I allude to the Laws of Divorce. Were the subject one entirely secular it would be most easily dealt with, but there is a theological phase which cannot so easily be managed. It really would be worth while to call the attention of the medical profession to what appears to be a species of opthalmia that attacks, and absolutely blinds, mankind in theological matters. Man, while engaged in his secular avocations, we find to be acute, logical, reflecting, patient, liberal, affectionate, and just. The same individual, when under ecclesiastical influence, becomes silly, unreflecting, illogical, impatient, illiberal, unjust, and bigoted; in fact, the only conclusion that can by possibility be arrived at is, that on theological subjects some men are insane. To return to divorce. Some little time since there was a case before that time-honoured institution, the Ecclesiastical Court, in which, as reported in the public prints, a man and his wife saw fit to change their religious views-it was from the episcopal to the Roman Catholic system: into the latter he wished to enter as a priest, but this office (whether wisely or no is not now the question) is forbidden to married men. He attempted, with the full consent of his wife, to obtain a divorce, but as neither had committed crime, the law forbade. They left the country, went to Rome, and there obtained a dispensation, the condition of which was perpetual chastity on her part, and of his to become a priest of his new faith. After a lapse of years, his wife had become a superior of a convent of nuns at Derby, but now the man, from some cause or reason unknown, wishes again to have possession of the woman who, in the eyes of some (the Catholics) was no longer his wife, and who, had divorce been free, would not, even in Protestant eyes, have been his wife; but though opposed by the woman who had not changed her views, the Ecclesiastical Court ruled that he was entitled to a restitution of conjugal rights; that is, that against the woman's will he can, under the sanction of law (ecclesiastical law), forcibly take possession and outrage the feelings of a woman who (however erroneous we may think such views) conscientiously believed she had devoted herself to her God, and that such cohabitation as the man claimed and the law granted him, was opposed to her ideas, wishes, theories, and probably involved, in her opinion, her eternal salvation. In some courts we hear custom is law; in others law is shelved, and equity is supposed to be the guiding principle; but in ecclesiastical courts, what is the principle on which