And after this, convening them in one body, he publicly exhorted them all to the fame purpose, in an oration, which (to me) is by far the nobleft of the kind, extant in the world. But before I proceed to confider that performance, I muft beg the reader's attention to fome points of great importance antecedent to it.

CHA P. XIX.

A Differtation upon the immenfe Treafures left by DAVID, for building the Temple.

TH

HERE is no one point relating to the facred writings, in which I find learned men, and critics of all kinds, fo greatly and diftantly divided, as this of the treasures left by David, for building the

temple;

therefore, and build ye the fanctuary of the Lord God, to bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and the holy vefels of God, into the house that is to be built to the Name of the Lord.

This, I apprehend, is recorded by the facred writer, as the fubftance of David's private exhortations to each of the princes, upon this head.

temple; fome thinking them incredibly immenfe, and others doubling them; fome fufpecting fome numeral errors in the text, and others finking the talent almost to nothing, in order to guard against the fuppofition of any fuch errors; whilst others seem to value themfelves upon having difcovered new veins of wealth, from whence much greater treasures might have been derived.

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IN the midst of this uncertainty, there are fome points, I think, clear and inconteftable.

THE firft is, that there is not the least ground to believe, that the Hebrews ever varied their weights and measures, at leaft before the captivity. And therefore David's talent was the fame with that of Moses.

THE next plain point is, that the Hebrew talent was of a confiderable weight.

WHAT Mofes's talent was, is known to a demonstration, from the account left us of the firft capitation in the wilderness, Exod. xxxviii. 25, 26. in which fix hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty men, being taxed at half a shekel a head, raised a fum of an hundred talents of filver, and a thou

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thousand seven hundred and threescore and fifteen fhekels. From whence it follows, that one talent contained three thousand fhekels; and that it could not contain less, in the days of Amaziah, is pretty evident, from the account left us in 2 Chron. xxv. 6. of his having hired an hundred thousand mighty men of valour out of Ifrael, for an hundred talents of filver. If the talent had then contained less than three thousand fhekels, what had been the hire of each of thefe foldiers? -And the hiftory of Gebazi, Hezekiah, and many other paffages of the Old Testament, plainly prove the talent to have been of a confiderable weight,

ANOTHER plain point is, that David must have left immenfe treasures for building the temple, from the vast number of workmen imployed and maintained for that service, for eleven years: four years in preparing the materials, and seven in putting them together.

HIRAM's fervants, hired at the rate of twenty thousand measures of wheat, and twenty thousand measures of barley, and twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thoufand baths of oil, year by year; thirty thousand hewers

265 hewers of wood, in Lebanon (ten thousand of them in conftant imployment); feventy thousand bearers of burdens, and fourscore thousand hewers of large and costly stones in the mountains; ftones of ten cubits, and ftones of eight cubits, fawed with faws, and joined with unparallelled exactnefs; and three thousand fix hundred overseers of the work; that is, overfeers of those who prepared materials for it; befides five hundred and fifty, which bare rule over the people that wrought in the work (fays the text, 1 Kings ix. 23.); that is, which oversaw the execution of it; and twenty-four thousand Levites, appointed to fet it forward, 1 Chron. xxiii. 4. Add to all thefe, the workers of precious ftones, of gold, and filver, and metals of all kinds. What vaft fums of money must have circulated through Jerufalem, from the wages of fo many men every year? And how prodigious must the quantity of gold and filver, left by David, be, when this treasure (for this only can account for it) enabled Solomon to give gold and filver in Jerufalem, as ftones; as the facred text informs us he did (2 Chron. i. 15.)? Add to this, the immenfe quantity of folid gold,

which covered the intire infide of the porch, the boly, and the holy of holies, and the upper chambers+; the ark, the mercy-feat, the cherubims, the altar of incenfe, and ten tables of fhewbread; the ten candlesticks, and utenfils of all kinds, for the service of the temple, fuch as dishes, cups, &c. which Jofephus computes to have been no less than four hundred and forty thoufand, of that metal; befides many utenfils exprefly faid in the fcriptures to be of gold, fuch as fnuffers, lamps, tongs, and fpoons, which Jofephus takes no notice of; and befides all thofe of filver, which were thirteen hundred and forty thoufand.

ANOTHER plain point is, that the facred writers were very careful and exact, in the accounts left us, of the quantities of money contributed towards this work; when they defcend even to the number of drachms contributed above the number of talents. Nor is there the leaft ground for fufpecting any error to have crept into the text, or altera

Jofephus tell us, (Antiq. lib. viii. cap. 3.) that the temple had another building over it, equal to it in its measures. And therefore we may fairly conclude, that the upper chambers here spoken of were the chambers of that building.