543 filence may almost as well be alleged against an hundred other remarkable paffages in Jofephus's works as against thefe before us. XII. Nor does the like filence of monies, or any of them, were not in the copies of his age. Tertullian ertullian imply that thefe teftinever once hints at any treatifes of Jofephus's but thofe against Apion, and that in general only, for a point of chronology: Nor does it any way appear that Tertullian ever faw any of Jofephus's writings belides, and far from being certain that he faw even thofe. He had particular occafion in his difpute against the Jews to quote Jofephus, above any other writer, to prove the completion of the prophecies of the Old Teftament, in the deftruction of Jerufalem, and miseries of the Jews at that time, of which he there difcourfes, yet does he never once quote. him upon that folemn occafion; fo that it feems to me, that i ertullian never read either the Greek antiquities of Jofephus, or his Greek books of the Jewish wars; nor is this at all ftrange in Tertullian, a Latin writer, that lived in Africa, by none of which African writers is there any one claufe, that I know of, cited out of any of Jofephus's writings: Nor is it worth my while in fuch numbers of pofitive citations of thefe claufes, to mention the filence of other later writers, as being here o very small confequence. DISSERTATION II. Concerning God's command to ABRAHAM to offer up ISAAC, his Son, for a Sacrifice. SINCE INCE this command of God to Abraham* has of late been greatly mistaken by fome, who venture to reafon about very ancient facts, from very modern notions, and this without a due regard to either the cuftoms, or opinions, or circumftances of the times whereto thofe facts belong, or indeed to the true reafons of the facts themfelves; fince the mistakes about thofe cuftoms, opinions, circumftances, and reasons, have of late fo far prevailed, that the very fame action of Abraham's, which was fo celebrated by St. Pault St. James the author to the Hebrews Philo, and Jofephus in the first century, and by innume rable others fince, as an uncommon inftance of fignal virtue, of heroic faith in God, and piety towards him; nay, is in the facred** hiftory highly commended by the divine Angel of the Covenant, in the name of God himself, and promifed to be plentifully rewarded; fince this command, I fay, is now at laft in the eighteenth century, become a ftane of ftumbling, and a rock of offence among us, and that fometimes to perfons of otherwife good fenfe, and of a religious difpofition of mind alfo, I shall endeavor to fet this matter in its true, i. e. in its ancient and original light, for the fatisfaction of the inquisitive. In order whereto, we are to confider, 1. That till this very profane age, it has been, I think, univerfally allowed by all fober perfons, who owned themfelves the creatures of God, that the Creator has a just right over all his rational creatures, to protract their lives to what length he pleafes; to cut them off when, and by what inftruments he pleafes; to afflict them with what ficknelles he pleases; and to remove them from one state or place in this his great palace of the univerfe to another, as he pleafes; and that all thole rational creatures are bound in duty and intereft to acquiefce un *Gen. xxti. Rom. iv. 10-2219h 1, de Gygant. p. 294ii. 15-18. - ames ii 21, 22. - Heb xi, 17-Jol. Antiq. B. 1. chap.xiii.- -Gen der the divine difpofal, and to refign themselves up to the good provi. dence of God in all fuch his difpenfations towards them. I do not mean to intimate, that God may, or ever does act in thefe cafes after a mere arbitrary manner, or without fufficient reafon, believing, according to the whole tenor of natural and revealed religion, that he hateth nothing that he hath made that whatfoever he does, how melancholy foever it may appear at first fight to us, is really intended for the good of his creatures, and at the upshot of things, will fully appear fo to be; but that fill he is not obliged, nor does in general give his creatures an account of the particular reasons of fuch his difpenfations towards them immediately, but ufually tries and exercises their faith and patience, their refignation and obedience, in their present state of probation, and referves thofe reafons to the last day, the day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God.t 2. That the entire hiftories of the past ages, from the days of Adam till now, that fhews, that Almighty God has ever exercifed his power over mankind, and that without giving them an immediate account of the reafons of fuch his conduct; and that withal the best and wifeft men of all ages, Heathens as well as Jews, and Christians, Marcus Antonius, as well as the Patriarch Abraham, and St. Paul, have ever humbly fubmitted themselves to this conduct of the Divine Providence, and always confeffed that they were obliged to the undeferved goodness and mercy of God for every enjoyment, but could not demand any of them of his justice, no not so much as the continuance of that life whereto thofe enjoyments do appertain. When God was pleafed to fweep the wicked race of men away by a flood, the young innocent infants, as well as the guilty old finners; when he was pleafed to fhorten the lives of men after the flood, and still downward till the days of David and Solomon; when he was pleafed to deftroy impure Sodom and Gomorrha by fire and brimstone from heaven, and to extirpate the main body of the Amorites out of the land of Canaan, as foon as their iniquities were full and in these inftances included the young innocent infants, together with the old hardened finners; when GOD was pleafed to fend an angel, and by him to deftroy 185,000 Affyrians, (the number attefted too by Berofus the Chaldean, as well as by our own Bibles) in the days of Hezekiah, moft of which feem to have had no other peculiar guilt upon them than that common to foldiers in war, of obeying without reserve, their king, Sennacherib, his generals and captains; and when at the plagues of Athens, London, Marfeilles, &c. fo many thousand righteous men and women, with innocent babes, were swept away on a fudden, by a fatal contagion, 1 do not remember that fober men have complained that God dealt unjult. ly with fuch his creatures, in thofe to us feemingly fevere difpenfations: Nor are we certain when any fuch feemingly fevere difpenfations are really fuch, nor do we know but fhortening the lives of men may fometimes be the greatest blefling to them, and prevent or put a ftop to thofe courfes of grofs wickednefs which might bring them to greater mifery in the world to come: Nor is it fit for fuch poor, weak, and ignorant creatures as we are, in the prefent ftate, to call our Alnighty, and Allwife, and Allgood Creator and Benefactor, to an account, upon any fuch occafions; fince we cannot but acknowledge, that it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves; that we are nothing, and have nothing of ourselves, independent on him, but that all we are, all we have, and all we hope for, is derived from him, from his free and undeferved bounty, which therefore he may justly take from us, in what way foever, and whenfoever he pleates; all wife and good inen still saying in fuch cafes with the pious Pfalmift, xxxix. q. 16.§ Pfalm c. 3. Wild, xi. 14.† Rom. ii. 5. -‡ Gen. xv. I was dumb, I opened not my mouth because thou didst it; and with pa tient Job, i. 21. ii. Iɔ. Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and hall not we receive evil? The Lord gave, and the Lord took away, blessed be the name of the Lord. If therefore this fhortening or taking away the lives of men be no objection against any divine command for that purpofe, it is full as ftrong against the prefent fyftem of the world, against the conduct of Divine Providence in general, and against natural religion, which is founded on the juftice of that Providence, and is no way peculiar to revealed religion, or to the fact of Abraham now before us. Nor is this cafe much different from what was soon after the days of Abraham thoroughly fettled. after Jobs and his friends' debates, by the infpiration of Elihu, and the determination of God himself, where the Divine Providence was at length thoroughly cleared and juftified before all the world, as it will be, no question, more generally cleared and juftified at the final judgment * 3. That till this profane age, it has allo. I think, been univerfally allowed by all fober men, that a command of God, when fufficiently made known to be fo, is abundant authority for the taking away the life of any perfon whomfoever. I doubt both ancient and modern princes generals of armies and judges, even thofe of the best reputation alfo, have ventured to take many men's lives away upon much lefs authority: Nor indeed do the moft fceptical of the moderns care to deny this authority directly; they rather take a method of objecting fomewhat more plausible, though it amount to much the fame : They fay, that the apparent difagreement of any command to the moral attributes of God, fuch as this of the flaughter of an only child feems plainly to be, will be a' greater evidence that fuch command does not come from God, than any pretended revelation can be that it does. But as to this matter, although divine revelations have now fo Jong ceafed, that we are not well acquainted with the manner of conveying fuch revelations with certainty to men, and by confequence the apparent disagreement of a command with the moral attributes of God, ought at prefent, generally, if not conftantly, to deter men from acting upon fuch a pretended revelation, yet was there no fuch uncertainty in the days of the old prophets of God, or of Abraham, the friend of God, who are ever found to have had an entire certainty of thofe their revelations: And what evidently thews they were not deceived, is this, that the events and confequences of things afterward always correfponded, and secured them of the truth of fuch divine revelations. Thus the first miracu'ous voice from heaven,t calling to Abraham not to execute this command, and the performance of thofe eminent promifes made by the fecond voice, on account of his obedience to that command, are demonftrations that Abrahanı's commiffion for what he did was truly divine, and are an entire juftification of his conduct in this matter. The words of the firft voice from heav en will come hereafter to be fet down in a fitter place, but the glorious promifes made to Abraham's obedience by the fecond voice, must here be produced from verfe 15...18. "And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the fecond time, and faid, By myfelf have I fworn faith the Lord; for because thou haft done this thing, and haft not withheld thy fon, thine only fon from me, that in blething I will blefs thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy fee 1 as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the fea thore; and thy feet fhall poffefs the gate of his enemies: And in thy feed thall all the nations of the earth be bleffed, because thou haft obeyed my voice." Every one of hich promifes have been eminently fulfilled; and, what is chiefly remarkable, the last and principal of them. *Ifai, xli. 8. + Gen. xxi, 1, 12.———————— that in Abraham's SEED all the nations of the earth should be blessed, was never promised till this time It had been twice promifed him, chap. xii. verfe 3, and xviii. 18, that in himself should all the families of the earth be blessed, but that this bleffing was to belong to future times, and to be bestowed by the means of one of his late pofterity. That great Seed and Son of Abraham only, was never revealed before, but on fuch an amazing inftance of his faith and obedience as was this his readiness to offer up his only begotten fon Ifaac, was now firft promifed, and has been long ago performed, in the birth of Jefus of Nazareth, the fon of David the Jon of Abraham, which highly deserves our obfervation in this place: Nor can we fuppofe that any thing else than clear conviction that this command came from God, could induce so good a man, and fo tender a father as Abraham was, to facrifice his only beloved fon, and to lose thereby all the comfort he received from him at prefent, and all the expectation he had of a numerous and happy pofterity from him hereafter. 4. That long before the days of Abraham, the dæmons or heathen gods had required and received human facrifices, and particularly that of the offerer's own children, and this both before and after the deluge. This practice had been indeed fo long left off in Egypt, and the custom of facrificing animals there was confined to fo few kinds in the days of Herodotus, that he would not believe they had ever offered human facrifices at all: For he fays,+ "That the fable, as if Hercules was facrificed to Jupiter in Egypt, was feigned by the Greeks, who were entirely unacquainted with the nature of the Egyptians, and their laws, for how should they facrifice men, with whom it is unlawful to facrifice any brute beast? (boars and bulls, and pure calves, and ganders, only excepted.") However, it is evident from Sanchoniatho, Manetho, Paufanias, Diodorus Siculus, Philo, Plutarch, and Porphyry, that fuch facrifices were frequent both in Phoenicia and Egypt. and that long before the days of Abraham, as Sir John Martham and Bishop Cumberland have fully proved; nay, that in other places, (though not in Egypt) this cruel practice continued long after Abraham, and this till the very third, if not alfo to the fifth century of Chriftianity, before it was quite abolithed. Take the words of the original authors in English, as most of them occur in the originals in Sir John Marsham's Chronicon, p. 76...78. 300...304 Chronust offered up his only begotten fon, as a burnt offering, to his father Ouranus, when there was a famine and a peftilence." "Chronus, whom the Phoenicians name Ifrael [it should be ] and who was after his death confecrated into the ftar Saturn, when he was king of the country, and had by a nymph of that country, named Anobret, an only begotten fon, whom, on that account, they called Feud, (the Phoenicians to this day calling an only begotten fon by that name) he, in his dread of very great dangers that lay upon the country frora war, adorned his fon with royal apparel, and built an altar, and offered him in facrifice." 66 The Phoenicians, when they were in great dangers by war, by famine, or by peftilence, facrificed to Saturn one of the deareft of their people, whom they chofe by public fuffrage for that purpofe: And Sanchoniatho's Phoenician hiftory is full of fuch facrifices. [Thefe hitherto I take to have been before the flood."] In Arabia, the Dumatii facrificed a child every year." "They relate that of old the [Egyptian] kings facrificed fuch men as were of the fame color with Typho, at the fepulchre of Ofiris " Matth. i. 1. Ap. Marth. Chron. p. 303. Philo Bib. ex Sanchọn. p. 76. - Porphyry, p 77 Philo Bib. ex S.nchon p. 77,Diod. p. 78.++ Porphyry, p. 77 Manethe relates that they burnt Typonean men alive in the city Idithyia, [or llythia] and fcattered their afhes like chaff that is winnowed; and this was done publicly, and at a fet season, in the dog days.' The barbarous nations did a long time admit of the flaughter of children, as of an holy practice, and acceptable to the gods. And this thing both private persons, and kings, and entire nations, practise at proper feafons." The human facrifices that were enjoined by the Dodonean oracle, mentioned in Paufanias's Achaics, in the tragical ftory of Corefus and Callirhoe, fufficiently intimate that Phoenician and Egyptian priests had fet up this Dodónean oracle before the time of Amalis, who destroyed that barbarous practice in Egypt." ...Ifque adytis hæc triflia dia reportat, .........He from the gods this dreadful anfwer brought, O Grecians, when the Trojan shores you fought, And Grecian blood once more atone the main. DRYDEN, Thefe bloody facrifices were, for certain, inftances of the greatest degree of impiety, tyranny, and cruelty, in the world, that either wicked dæmons, or wicked men, who neither made, nor preferved mankind, who had therefore no right over them, nor were they able to make them amends in the next world for what they thus loft or fuffered in this, fhould, after fo inhuman a manner, command the taking away the lives of men, and particularly of the offerer's own children, without the commiffion of any crime. This was, I think, an abomination derived from him who was a murderer§ from the beginning; a crime truly and properly diabolical. 5. That accordingly Almighty God himself, under the Jewish dif penfation, vehemently condemned the Pagans, and fometimes the Jews themselves for this crime; and for this, and other heinous fins, caft the idolatrous nations (nay fometimes the Jews too) out of Paleftine. Take the principal texts hereto relating, as they lie in order in the Old Teftament. 66 Thou shalt not let any of thy feed pafs through the fire to Moloch. Defile not yourself in any of these things, for in all these the nations are defiled, which I caft out before you," &c. **Whofoever he be of the children of Ifrael, or of the strangers that fojourn in Ifrael, that giveth any of his feed unto Moloch, he fhall furely be put to death; the people of the land shall stone him with ftones." "++ Take heed to thy felf, that thou be not fnared by following the nations, after that they be deftroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, faying, How did thefe nations ferve their gods? Even fo will I do likewife. Thou shalt not do fo unto the Lord thy God; for every abomination of the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods, for even their fons and their daughters Plutarch, p. 78.- -† Nonulii ap. Philon. p. 75. -t Cumberl. San- chon p. 378. -- |