day in which they were facrificed; as to the reft, they were to be eaten that day, and might be eaten alfo the next, but no farther; if any remained to the morning of the third day, it was to be confumed by fire.

The rifing from fleep then, on the day in which our Lord was crucified, was early, for the purpose of preparing for the folemnities of rejoicing in feafting before the Lord that first day of this feftival; and also of preparing part of the peace-offerings to be eaten with joy on the Sabbath, which happened now to be the second day of the Paffover folemnity, in which they were to drefs none of their provifions. It was a day then in which they had much to do, and no wonder they were preffing that the business of our Lord might be dispatched.

In the cafe of St. Paul, more than forty men had bound themselves by an oath, that they would neither eat nor drink 'till they had killed him, Acts xxiii. 21; it doth not appear that the chief men of the Jews, at the time of our Lord's death, had bound themselves by a fimilar oath but it is natural to believe, that the like vehemence of temper disposed them to endeavour to dispatch that affair, before they fat down to feast on the peace-offerings of the day'.

It

So Bishop Gardiner was fo anxious to hear of the death of Ridley and Latimer, that he refufed to dine 'till

It is for this reafon, I prefume, that St. John tells us in his Gospel, ch. xix. 14, that it was about the fixth hour of the preparation of the Passover, when Pilate delivered Jefus up to the will of the Jews: not, I apprehend, the fixth hour of that day, (the fixth hour after the rifing of the fun that day,) but the fixth hour

OF THE PREPARATION OF THE PASSOVER PEACE-OFFERINGS, which began, according to Lightfoot, from the time of cock-crowing; and, without controverfy, before the day dawned, and might therefore very well agree with St. Mark's account', of it's being about the third hour of the day, when he was led away to be crucified. This only fupposes the preparation for the facrificing thefe peace-offerings began about three o'clock of the morning, as we reckon the hours, but, if Lightfoot be right, might be earlier, fince cock-crowing was the whole third watch of the night-from midnight 'till about three in the morning.

This appears to me the moft fimple and natural folution of a difficulty which has perplexed many of the learned, arifing from a feeming contradiction between St. Mark and St. John, as to the time of the beginning of our Lord's crucifixion. St. Mark had faid nothing of this day's being a day of

prepara

he heard of their being dead, though no mention is made in hiftory, I think, of his having bound himself, by oath, not to do it. * Ch. 15. 25.

tion before the Sabbath, when he mentions the third hour, nor for several verfes after, he must therefore have meant the hour of the day; but St. John mentions the preparation of the Pallover immediately before he speaks of the fixth hour, which therefore expreffes as naturally the fixth hour of the preparation, if not more fo, as the hour from the fun's rifing.

Some learned men have fuppofed St. John might reckon the hours after the Roman manner, and fo the fixth hour would mean the fixth hour from midnight. The learned and very accurate Dr. Ward, of Grefhamcollege, was of this opinion. The very learned and ingenious Dr. Lardner would not allow of this, as no notice is given of fuch a way of reckoning by St. John, and as it was not practised by other Jewish writers, who wrote for the information of the Romans and Greeks, as well as John, particularly by neither of the other three Evangelifts, nor by Jofephus'. What Lardner has faid, and which I have just now been

• The folution of Dr. Ward, though a perfon of exquifite learning, is the more unfatisfactory, as the Romans appear, at least very frequently, if not most commonly, to have reckoned as the Jews did, from the fun-rifing for the hours of the day, as they did from it's fetting for those of the night, (the Romans of that age,) as appears from Horace, Sat. lib. 1, fat. 3, 1. 23-25, where the dauphin editor refers to the 3d fatire of Perfius in proof of the fame way of reckoning. Suetonius affords us feveral proofs of it

repeating, appears, it must be owned, very ftrong; but I beg leave juft to obferve, that when St. John fays it was about the fixth bour, when the woman of Samaria came to draw water at Jacob's well', that that circumftance feems fomewhat to favour Ward's hypothefis, though it is by no means decifive, For I have elsewhere fhown, that the Eaftern women are faid, by thofe that have travelled in thofe countries, to fetch water only in the evening or the morning; to which may be added, that the Scriptures themselves speak of the evening as the time women were wont to go out to draw water, Gen. xxiv. II. "And he made his camels to kneel down "without the city, by a well of water, at "the time of the evening, even the time that

women go out to draw water." According to this, the time of our Lord's being at Jacob's well fhould be in the evening, and it being faid to be then about the fixth hour, St. John must have reckoned, not according to the Jewish, but the Roman manner of reckoning, unless the woman of Samaria went at a time unusual both in ancient and modern times. It might, poffibly, however happen.

I mention this circumftance, because I do not recollect either of these gentlemen have

1 Ch. 4. 6, 7. 2 Obferv. vol. 1. p. 168, and 371. I fhall have occafion to take notice of this circumtance of the time of her coming to the well, under an other article in this volume,

taken

taken notice of it in arguing this matter, (and I have neither of them at hand to confult on this occafion,) but I will not pretend to decide the point. It is not at all neceffary, I apprehend, to folve the feeming contrariety between St. Mark and St. John, as to the time of fastening our Lord to the cross.

The other paffages of St. John's Gospel, in which mention is made of the hours, will in no wife be thought, I believe, to deter mine, whether he made ufe of the Roman or Jewish method of reckoning them.

I have fince obferved in the collections of Wolfius', that the explanation which I have given has been propofed heretofore to the world; my Reader, however, has it here as it presented itself to my mind, in thinking over the feveral circumftances I have been reciting, and with fuch additional confiderations and variations, as, perhaps, may not be difpleafing.

OBSERVATION XLI.

There is fuch a remarkable difference between the account the facred hiftorians give us, of the provifions that were brought to David when he fled from Abfalom, and by the Ifraelites that came to make him king at Hebron, as feems to me to deferve a little

Tome I. p. 970,

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