Est. Ne 7. to the end; all Neh. and part of and Malachi. is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, From Ezra, iv. that the man of God, or every man who resolves to be godly, may be perfect, wise unto salvation, and thoroughly furnished unto all good works." One thing we may observe farther:-That since there was a public liturgy establish- Hagg. Zech. ed in the Jewish church, and forms of prayer, though very empty and jejune in compari-. son of those that are in use among us; our blessed Saviour, when upon earth, was contented to join with the public in these forms, and to frequent the synagogue (a) every Sabbath-day. And this may inform us, that to break the union of a church upon the account of better edification, or more ecstatic prayers, is a refinement that the great Teacher of all righteousness knew nothing of. In the course of his preaching, he spared not to tell the Jews freely of all the corruptions that in his time they had run into; and therefore, had it been contrary to the will of God to use set forms of prayer in his public service, or had it been displeasing to him to be addressed in such mean forms when much better might have been made, we may be sure he would have told them both, and joined with them in neither: but since he never found fault with them for using set forms, but, on the contrary, taught his own, disciples a set form to pray by, since he nowhere expressed a dislike of the forms then in use, upon account of their meanness, but, on the contrary, testified his approbation of them by joining with them in their synagogues; this should convince our separatists, one would think, that neither our using set forms of prayer in our public worship, nor the using of such as they think not sufficiently edifying, can be objections sufficient to justify them in their refusal to join with us in them, because, in both these cases, they have the example of Christ directly against them. The truth is, whether there be a form or no form, or whether the form be elegantly or meanly composed, nothing of this availeth to the recommending of our prayers unto God. It is the true and sincere devotion of the heart alone that can make them acceptable unto him; for it is this only that gives life and vigour, and a true acceptance to all our religious addresses. Without this, how elegantly, how movingly, soever the prayer may be composed, and how fervently, how zealously, soever it may seem to be poured out, yet all this is dead matter, and of no validity in the presence of our God; but, on the contrary, the very heathens can tell us, that, be our prayers and oblations never so mean, they will be a "sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour" unto him, if we bring but along with us to his worship, Compositum jus fasque animo, sanctosque recessus (a) Luke iv. 16. Pers. Sat. 2. CHAPTER III. FROM THE DEATH OF NEHEMIAH TO THE DEATH OF THE HISTORY. &c. or 5070. Ant. or 341. 2. Jos. Hist A. M. 3596, MANASSEH, as Josephus calls him, (for we have now left the sacred history, and From 1 Chris have nothing but the books of the Maccabees, Philo Judæus, and Josephus, with some M 408, &c. fragments of the Greek and Latin writers, to depend on), being expelled from Jerusa- x. and fr lem, with several others, who would not submit to Nehemiah's order for their parting with their idolatrous wives, went to Samaria (as we said before), and there put himself lib. xii under the protection of Sanballat, his father-in-law; who, applying to Darius Nothus (the then king of Persia), did so far insinuate himself into his favour, as to obtain a grant for the building of a temple on Mount Gerizzim, near Samaria, and for making Manasseh, his son-in-law, the high priest of it *. The Samaritans † were originally the Cutheans, and such other of the Eastern na * [The Sanballat, who built the temple on Mount Gerizzim, and constituted his son-in-law Manasseh high priest, was a different man, and lived at a different period, from him who disturbed Nehemiah when rebuilding Jerusalem. The disturber of Nehemiah was a Horonite or Moabite, who flourished in the reign of Darius Nothus, the Sanballat who built the temple on Gerizzim for his son-in law Manasseh, was a Cuthite, sent to be governor of Samaria by Darius Codomannus the last king of Persia. Our author thinks it improbable that there should be two Sanballats in Samaria connected with the Jewish high priests by marriage; but such was the tendency of the high priests at that period to despise the law, and even to set the priesthood to sale, that there is no improbability whatever in this, if Sanballat was a common name at that period in Samaria. Indeed, whether it was or not, our conjectures must give place to the express testimony of Josephus, who says, that after the battle of Granicus, Sanballat renounced Darius, and taking with him seven thousand men, came to Alexander when commencing the siege of Tyre, and acknowledged him for his lord instead of Darius. Alexander receiving him kindly, was told by Sanballat that his son-in-law Manasseh was brother to the Jewish high priest Jaddua; that he and his people were desirous to have a temple in some place within his own government; and that it would be for the conqueror's advantage to have the strength of the Jews (for he called the Samaritans Jews) divided. On this, Alexander gave Sanballat leave to build his temple on Mount Gerizzim, and to constitute his son-in-law high priest. Josephus's Antiq. lib. xi. cap. 8.] If we will believe their Chronicle, (which they tell us is of great antiquity, though others who have examined it, will not allow it to be as old as Constantine's days), they give us an account of their origin, quite different to what we gather from Sacred Writ. They pretend to be descended from Joseph by Ephraim in a direct line; and that when Joshua entered into the promised land, he caused a temple to be built upon Mount Gerizzim, and appointed one Buz, of the seed of Aaron, to officiate as high priest, from whom they have an exact genealogy and uninterrupted succession ever since. They neither own Jeroboam's schism, nor the transmigration of the ten tribes, but give this account of their leaving their country and returning to it again,-That when the kings of Jerusalem and Syria had revolted against Bachtnezzar, (so they call Nebuchadnezzar), he came 2. Macc. iii. xi. c. 7. to tions, as Esarhaddon, after the deportation of the Israelites, planted there; but after this From 1 Macc. temple was built, and Samaria became a common refuge for all refractory Jews, this vi. 7. mixture of inhabitants in a short time produced a change in religion. For whereas x. and from they had hitherto worshipped the God of Israel, in conjunction with the gods of the East, Jos. Hist. lib. from whence they came, when once the Jewish worship came to be settled among them, lib. xii. c. 14. and the book of the law of Moses to be read publicly, they conformed themselves wholly to the worship of the true God, and, in their performance of this, were as exact as the Jews themselves. The Jews, however, looking on them as apostates, hated them to such a degree, as to avoid all manner of converse and communication with them. This hatred first began from the malice which the Samaritans expressed against them, both in the rebuilding of their temple and in the repairing of the walls of their city. It was afterwards much increased by the apostacy of Manasseh, and his setting up an altar and temple in opposition to those at Jerusalem; and it was all along kept up on account of some particular tenets, wherein the two nations were known to disagree. For the Samaritans received no other Scriptures than the five books of Moses; they rejected all traditions, and adhered only to the written word itself; and they maintained, that Mount Gerizzim †, whereon their temple was built, was the only proper place for the with an army and took Jerusalem, and thence marching to the Shechemites (for that is the name they give themselves), ordered them to leave their country in seven days, upon pain of military execution, which they readily did: That when he sent Persians to inhabit the cities which they had left, they could not live there, because the fruits which seemed fair to the eye were tainted with poison, and so destroyed them: That upon complaints of this, the king consulted with some of the ancient inhabitants of these provinces, who informed him, that the only remedy was to send the Hebrews back again into their own country; which when he consented to, a place was appointed for their general rendezvous: That when they came to this place, a dispute arose between them, whether they should go and rebuild the temple of Jerusalem or that of Gerizzim, and when Zerubbabel was for the former, and Sanballat for the latter, each pleading the sanction of the Pentateuch, and each pretending that the copy of his opponent was corrupt, they resolved to end the controversy by a fiery trial: That Zerubbabel's copy being thrown in to the fire was immediately consumed, but that Sanballat's endured the flames three times together, and received no manner of harm; whereupon the king honoured the Shechemites with rich presents, and sent Sanballat as the head of the ten tribes to take possession of Mount Gerizzim. But who sees not that this whole history (full of falsities and absurdities as it is) was only invented to wipe off the shame and disgrace of the Samaritans, for being the offspring of proselytes, and a medley of foreign nations? Basnage's History of the Jews, lib. ii. c. 1. and Universal History, lib. ii. c. 1. lem was the only true one. The dispute was brought before the king; advocates on both sides were named; and it was agreed, that they who did not make their allegations good should be condemned to death. Both parties promised that they would produce all their testimonies from the law only. Andronicus, advocate for the Jews, spake first, and proved so very evidently from the Scriptures the antiquity of the temple of Jerusalem, the succession of the high priests, and the value which the Asiatic princes always had for that holy place, while at the same time they never so much as thought of the temple at Gerizzim, that the king and his assessors declared he had carried his cause, and ordered Sabbæus and Theodosius, the advocates for the Samaritans, to be put to death. Whether there be any reality in this account of Josephus or no, it is certain that the Samaritans, in behalf of Mount Gerizzim, have to plead,-That there Abraham (Gen. xii. 6, 7. and xiii. 4.) and there Jacob (Gen. xxxiii. 20.) built altars unto God, and by their offering up sacrifices thereon, consecrated that place above all others to his worship; that for this reason God himself appointed it (Deut. xxvii. 12.) to be the hill of blessing; and that accordingly Joshua, on his entrance upon the land of Canaan, caused the blessings of God, to such as would observe his laws, from hence to be pronounced; and, lastly, that when he passed the Jordan, he built here an altar of the twelve stones which he took out of the river in his passage, Deut. xxvii. 2-7. according to what God had commanded him by Moses. But herein the Samaritans are guilty of a great prevarication; for they have changed the words in the text of Deuteronomy, and instead of Mount Ebal (as it is in the original) have put Mount Gerizzim, the better to serve their cause. The truth of the matter is, since Manasseh was resolved to make a schism in the Jewish church, and Sanballat to build a temple for him, the reasons above-mentioned might be inducement enough for them to make choice of that place rather than any other; but from thence to pretend to vie with the Ꮞ Ꭰ Josephus, in his Jewish Antiquities, (lib. xiii. c. 6.) relates a dispute which arose in Egypt, in the reign of Ptolemy Philopater, between the Jews and Samaritans concerning their temples. The Samaritans maintained, that their temple upon Mount Gerizzim was the only true temple of the Lord; and the Jews, on the contrary, affirmed that theirs at JerusaVOL.II. A. M. 3596, worship of God; and from this variety of causes did ensuse all the hatred and viru&c. or 5070. lence which in the course of this history we shall have but too frequent occasion to take notice of Ant. Chris. 408, &c. or 341. After the death of Nehemiah, who was the last governor that the kings of Persia sent to Jerusalem, Judea, being added to the Prefecture of Syria, was from thenceforward subjected to the rulers of that province; and under them the administration of all public affairs, both civil and ecclesiastical, was committed to the high priest, which made that office much more coveted than it used to be, and many times tempted those who had no right to it to invade it. Upon the death of Darius Nothus, Artaxerxes, who, for his extraordinary memory, is by the Greeks called Mrav, or, The Remembrancer, succeeded his father in the throne of Persia; and, towards the latter end of his reign, made Bagoses governor of Syria and Phoenicia, who took upon him to confer the pontificate, even while Johanan the high priest (who had been several years invested with it) was alive, upon the high priest's brother Joshua, and who accordingly came with this grant to Jerusalem, in order to take possession of the office. (a) But, while the one endeavoured by force to get possession, and the other by force to keep him from it, it so happened that Johanan slew Joshua in the inner court of the temple; which when Bagoses heard, he came in great wrath to Jerusalem; went into the temple, notwithstanding the remonstrances that were made against it; and, having taken a thorough cognizance of the fact, imposed a mulct for the punishment of it, and obliged the priests to pay, out of the public treasury, for every lamb that they offered in the daily sacrifice, the sum of fifty drams, which is about one pound, eleven shillings, and threepence of our money. After the death of Artaxerxes Mruar, Ochus succeeded his father, but obtained the crown * by very wicked and indirect means. He reigned however for one and twenty temple at Jerusalem, is highly arrogant; because the (a) Jewish Antiq. lib. xi. c. 7. This, if extended only to the ordinary sacrifices, which were offered every day, amounted to 365,000 drachms for the whole year, which is no more than one thousand one hundred and forty pounds, twelve shillings, and sixpence of our money: But if it extended also to the extraordinary sacrifices which on solemn days were added to the ordinary, it will come to about half as much more. For the ordinary sacrifices which were offered every day, and therefore called the daily sacrifices, were a lamb in the morning and another in the evening, which are called the morning and evening sacrifices; and these in the whole year came to seven hundred and thirty. But besides these, there were added on every Sabbath two lambs more, Numb. xxviii. 9, 10. on every new moon seven, Numb. xxviii. 11. on each of the seven days of the paschal solemnity seven, Numb. xxviii. 16-24. besides one more on the second day, when the wave sheaf was offered, Lev. xxiii. 12. on the day of Pen tecost seven, ver. 17, 18. on the feast of trumpets seven, Numb. xxviii. 27. on the great day of expia tion seven, chap. xxix. 8 on each of the seven days of the feast of tabernacles fourteen, chap. xxix. 13. and on the eighth day seven, Numb. xxix. 36 so that the additional lambs being three hundred seventy and one, these, if reckoned to the other, make the whole number annually offered at the morning and evening sacrifices to be eleven hundred and one: and therefore, if the mulct of fifty drachms a lamb were paid for them all, it would make the whole of it to amount to 55,050 drachms, which comes to seventeen hundred and twenty pounds, six shillings, and threepence of our money. But even this sum being too small for a national mulet, it seems most probable that all the lambs which were offered in the temple, in any sacrifice, and upon any account whatever, were taken into the reckoning. We may observe, however, that whatever this mulct was, the payment of it lasted no longer than seven years; for, on the death of Artaxerxes, the changes and revolutions which then happened in the empire, made a change in the government of Syria, and he that succeeded Bagoses in that province no farther exacted it. Prideaux's Connection, Anno 366. * Artaxerxes, when he died, left three sons, Ariaspes, Ochus, and Arsames. Ariaspes was an easy, credulous prince; and therefore Ochus so terrified him with menaces, which he pretended came from his father, that, for fear of being put to death, he poisoned * 7. years, after which (a) he was poisoned by his favourite eunuch Bagoas, who put the From 1 Mace. crown upon the head of Arses, his youngest son; but, in a short time, dispatched him. iii.likewise, and made Codomannus, (b) one of the same family, but at some distance, and x. and From who upon his accession took the name of Darius, king of Persia. Jos. Hist. lib. xi. c. 7. to In the third year of the reign of Ochus, about three hundred and fifty-six years be- lib. xii. c. 14. fore the birth of Christ, Alexander the Great, who overthrew the Persian empire, was born at Pella in Macedonia. His father Philip had been chosen captain-general of all Greece (which at this time made a very considerable figure in history) for carrying on the war against Persia; but when he was just ready to set forward upon that expedition *2, he was slain at home, while he was celebrating the marriage of Cleopatra, his daughter, with Alexander king of Epirus. Upon his death, Alexander his son succeeded him in the kingdom of Macedon, when he was twenty years old; and (c) having been chosen (as his father was) to command the Grecian forces against Persia, he took the field, and, in one campaign only, overrun almost all Asia Minor; vanquished Darius in two pitched battles; took his mother, wife, and children, prisoners; and having subdued all Syria, came to Tyre; but there he met with a stop: For the Tyrians *3 (in confidence of the strength of the place, and of assistance from their allies), when he would have entered the city denied him admit tance. While his army was besieging Tyre, he sent out his commissioners, requiring the inhabitants of the neighbouring countries, viz. of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea, to submit to him, and to furnish him with what he wanted. Other provinces complied; but the Jews, pleading their oath to Darius, by which they thought themselves bound not to acknowledge any new master so long as he was alive, refused to obey his commands. This exasperated the conqueror not a little; who, † in the flush of his many successes, himself. Arsames he caused to be assassinated by This eunuch, having poisoned both Ochus and his son Arses, set the crown upon Darius's head; but, finding that he would not answer his purpose in permitting him to govern all in his name (which was the thing he aimed at in his advancement), he was resolved to have removed him in the same manner as he had done his predecessors, and accordingly had provided a poisonous potion for him. But Darius being advised of the design, when the potion was brought to him, made him drink it all himself, and so got rid of the traitor by his own artifice. Prideaux's Connection, Anno 335. (b) Diodorus Siculus, lib. xvii. *The occasion of his death is said to be this:Pausanius, a young noble Macedonian, and one of his guards, having had his body forced, and sodomitically abused by Attalus the chief of the king's confidents, had often complained to Philip of the injury; but, finding no redress, he turned his revenge from the author of the injury upon him who refused to do him justice for it, and slew him as he was passing in great state to the theatre, having the images of the twelve gods and goddesses and his own, in the same pompous habit, carried before him. Hereby he arroga ted to himself the honour of a god; but being slain as soon as his image entered the theatre, he gave a signal proof that he was no more than a mere mortal 3The city of Tyre is probably supposed to have No sooner was he chose general of all the Grecian cities confederated against the Persian empire, but he subdued the Tyrians and Triballians in Thrace; and upon his return took Thebes, that had revolted from the confederacy, and razed it to the ground. After this, setting out upon the Persian expedition, |