adjumento erunt ad judicium de conditione textus Hebraici hodierni recte ferendum. Nec amplius negatur, fieri potuisse ut evangelistæ ex Heb. textu (quem tunc temporis ante oculos habebant) accuratissime ea loca exscriberent, quæ nunc a nostris Hebraicis exemplaribus multum discrepant. Kennicot Gen. Dissertat. sect. 63. Tergantuç seu quaternio illa Deum opificem cum toto universo suo opificio repræsentans, sacerrimum Pythagoreis olim jusjurandum fuit. Illud autem jusjurandum tale fuisse Plutarchus nobis prodidit de Philos. placitis, Imo lib. Porro quaternarium cunctas tam numerandi tum canendi proportiones continere ex Pythagoricorum sententia tradit Athenagoras. Quem idcirco NUMERUM omnem vocabant, quod denarii numeri ab ipsis TEXTOS appellati, atque mundo consecrati, vim plenitudinemque contineat, velut cardo numerorum omnium. Nam unum, duo, tria, si quatuor jungantur, summa decadis constituunt quam quadraturam primam appellant, trigono æquilatero consistentem, cujus principium monas est. Idem triangulus per decades iteratus centenarii summam explebit; atque deinde per centenarios millenarii, denique per millenarios myriada conficiet. Cum igitur quater variata tetras perfectissimam ubique summam constituat, profecto -et ipsa summæ debet esse perfectionis, et quæ habeatur in pretio dignissima. Omnia namque quæ sunt, quaternarius numerus conficere colligareque videtur. Elementa nam rerum fere omnium quatuor esse constat; atque etiam consensu quodam tacito gentes plerasque omnes præcipuum Dei nomen quatuor litterarum elementis scribere novistis; quod profecto fortuitum non debet censeri; nam absque divinæ potestatis ordine non videtur evenisse. Appellatur igitur rectissime tetras solidi perfectio, nam omnia quæ consistunt punctum, lineam, superficiem, et corpus, habent. Steph. Pighius, tom ix. Græcarum Antiquit. p. 1166. The Tirgas, tetractys, or sacred number, four, which the disciples of Pythagoras used to swear by, in the explication of which the Pythagoreans themselves were not agreed, seems to have been borrowed from the tetragrammaton, or ', Jehovah, of the Jews. See Voss. de Idolol. lib. viii. c. 3. Why the number thirteen is reckoned at this day unlucky arises, probably, from the opinion of the antients, who never admitted more than twelve to sit down together. "De numero convivarum a Varrone apud A. Gellium, lib. xiii. c. 11, ita definitur. "Ut non pauciores sint quam tres, nec plures quam novem; ut numerum gratiarum æquent, aut musarum." Atque ideo in pleno convivio plerumque terni in lectis, nonnunquam et quaterni accumbentes, Horat. lib. i. sat. 4. Sæpe tribus lectis videas eenare quaternos. Quamvis apud Suetonium in Augusto cæna fuit, in qua duodecim convivæ, Ff turn over 3 leaves _ Tali oraculi responso haud leviter commotus Cæsar divinos honores tanto numíni decrevit, reversusque Romam in ipso capitolio aram maximam exstruxit cum hac inscriptione, Ara primogeniti Dei. Quæ res anno circiter U. C. 752, eodem quo Christus anno natus est, fertur eontigisse. Eodem etiam, ni fallor, referri potest eximius Virgilii locus Ecl. 4, cum is divino Spiritu afflatus et excelsioris cujusdam sapientiæ æstro (ut aiunt) percitus ita vaticinatur; magnus ab integro sæculorum, &c. Quis autem usque adeo sensu communi caret, ut neget poetam de Christo enthea quadam mente fuisse vaticinatum. Petrus Berthaldus de Ora. tom vi. Antiq. Rom. p. 388. The fable of ORPHEUS probably taken from the Scripture-account of David. David was eminent for his skill on the harp, and the only king that was so. The name of David's wife was Michal, in Hebrew, powerful; Eurydice, in Greek, of extensive right or jurisdiction. David the first professed poet; Orpheus the oldest of poets among the heathens. David a prophet; Orpheus a prophet. David endeavoured to reclaim the Arabs, worshippers of Bacchus; Orpheus, the Bacchanal Thracians. It is a tradition that David reclaimed the deserts and stones, and birds were obedient to him. Orpheus made the rocks, woods, and birds, to follow him, but could not civilise the Thracians. David's wife was ravished from him, and taken down to Laish, near Acaron; Orpheus's carried down to hell; that is, in the style of the poets, to the region of Acheron. The lake of Avernus corresponds to the lake Asphaltites, the boundary of Saul's kingdom for a hundred miles. Orpheus softened the infernal king with his music, and he let him have his wife. David softened king Saul, Now king Saul, in Hebrew, is bawa, which words are radically the same, when pointed, to signify king Saul and the infernal king. Delany's Life of David. The resemblance is so strong as scarcely to admit of a doubt. PONTIUS PILATE poisoned himself at Vienne, in Gaul, during his banishment there by Caius Caligula, the fourth Roman Emperor. The design of applying to the mercy of God, (by PRAYER,) and begging of him to pity our infirmities and wants, is not to move his affections, as good speakers move their auditors by the pathetic arts of rhetoric, or hearty beggars theirs by importunities and tears, but to express our own sense of ourselves and circumstances in such a manner as may render us more capable of receiving the emanation of Divine Goodness, and fit to receive such instances of his beneficence as to us may seem the effects of his compassion, though they proceed not from any alteration in the Deity. For, it may, and no doubt is, agreeable to perfect reason, always and without alteration, that he, who labours under a sense of his own defects, honestly uses his best endeayours to mend what is amiss, and, among other things, flies for relief to him upon Whom whom his being and all that he has do depend, should have many things granted to him which are not given to the careless, obdurate, unthinking, part of mankind; though his expressions and manner of address, with all his care, are still inadequate and below the Divine Nature. In short, by our applications we cannot pretend to produce any alterations in the Deity; but, by an alteration in ourselves, we may alter the relation or respect lying between him and us. Wollaston's Relig, of Nat, Ten thousand PROTESTANTS massacred at Paris, August 24, an. 14th of Elisabeth, 1572. Salmon's Hist. The city of London was reduced to so miserable a condition by a PLAGUE in the 17th of Charles II. that grass grew in the principal streets. Idem. When men are PUNISHED by God for the sins of the fathers, we must distinguish between the impulsive cause that deserved the punishment, which are men's sins only, and the impulsive cause that occasioned the punishment, which are the fathers sins. Sanderson's Serm. on v. 29 of 21 Ch. of the 1st Book of Kings. A remarkable instance of the detestableness of PARRICIDE, taken from Cicero's Defence of Sextus Roscius Amerinus. Magna est vis humanitatis: multum valet communio sanguinis; reclamitat istius modi suspicionibus ipsa natura. Portentum atque monstrum certissimum est, esse aliquem humana specie, et figura, qui tantum immanitate bestias vicerit; ut, propter quos hanc suavissimam lucem adspexerit, eos indignissime luce privarit; cum etiam feras inter se partus, atque educatio, et natura ipsa conciliet. Non ita multis ante annis aiunt, T. Clælium Terracinensem, hominem non obscurum, cum cenatus cubitum in idem conclave cum duobus adolescentibus filiis işset, inventum esse manè jugulatum, cum neque servus quisquam reperiretur, neque liber, ad quem ea suspicio pertineret: id sætatis autem duo filii propter cubantes ne sensisse quidem se dicerent: nomina filiorum de patricidio delata sunt. Quid postea? erat sane suspiciosum, neutrum sensisse, ausum autem esse quemquam, se in id conclave committere, eo potissimum tempore, cum ibidem essent duo adolescentes filii, qui et sentire et defendere facile possent? Erat porro nemo, in quem ea suspicio conveniret. Tamen cum planum judicibus esset factum, aperto ostio dormienteis eos repertos esse; judicio absoluti adolescentes, et sus¬ picione omni liberati sunt. Nemo enim putabat, quemquam esse, qui, cum omnia divina, atque humana jura scelere nefario polluisset, somnum statim capere potuisset. First of PETER, c.iii. 18, 19, 20, explained: "By the same Spirit, (the same Holy Ghost) by which Christ was raised from the dead, he had, at some time, (not in the intermediate space between his death and resurrection,) preached (not personally, tuvor but wrath of God, and that the imputation of Adam's guilt and obnoxiousness to punishment are effectually taken away by the meritorious oblation of the Lamb of God. To make an agreement between the word of God and his attributes, we may fairly allow that there was a covenant between God and man at his first creation; that, in making that covenant, Adam, as our head and representative, stipulated for all mankind as well as himself; and that, in his transgression of it, his guilt and the punishment due thereupon was imputed to all his posterity. This was the state wherein Adam left us; but then we must remember that the whole scheme of man's redemption was laid from all eternity in the divine counsel, so that the wisdom and goodness of God had effectually provided beforehand against all the ill consequences of the fall, and made it impossible that Adam's posterity should become eternally miserable and condemned to the flames and pains of hell any other way than through their own personal guilt and transgression. For every infant, as it brings with it the guilt of Adam's sin, brings with it likewise the merits and benefits of Christ's death. Stackhouse on original Sin. The disobedience of our first parents involved their posterity and entailed a depravity upon their descendants; which depravity, though it is not a sin in us until the will closes with it, yet is certainly sinful in itself, and therefore is stiled original sin. For, if it were not so, if the first rise of evil thoughts were not criminal in itself, the consent of the will could never make it so; for that cannot alter the nature of things Seed's Sermons, vol. ii. Nego eam, quam vocant LABEM ORIGINALEM, peccatum proprie dietum esse, nedum peccatum pœnâ dignum. - Sed tamen aliquod malum est, quia est privatio vel carentia boni alicujus excellentis. Malum enim est carere bono, quo non caruisses, nisi is unde malum istud ad te descendit ob peccatum suum punitus fuisset. Et hoc quidem pacto originaria ista labes, sive infirmitas, sive malum, sive vitium, aliaque mala omnia ab Adamo ad nos profluxerunt, et non incommode mala pœnæ dici possunt, etsi propriissime mala poenæ non sint, i. e. quamquam mala ista respectu Adami et Evæ pœnæ mala fuerunt, attamen respectu nostri poenæ proprie dictae rationem non habent, proinde nec culpæ. Non enim puuit nos Deus, cum nasci nos sinit ex Adamo destitutos gratiâ et favore illo, quo ipsius beneficio Adam ante peccatum fruebatur, sicuti punicbat Adamum cuin eum propter peccatum suum beneficio isto privabat, sed tantum non afficit nos eodem isto favore ac beneficio; vel potius ereptum Adamo peccatori beneficium, nobis, qui ex eo ita punito nascimur, non restituit; non ut nos się puniat, sed vel quia Dominus rei suæ est, qui tantum cuique dare potest quantum vult, vel quia naturæ conditionem ut mutet nullà lege adstringitur. Nec enim tenetur æqualiter omuibus benefacere, neque naturæ cursum sistere supremus rerum omnium Dominus. Interea incumbit cervicibus nostris malum istud, ex parentis nostri culpa ad nos poenæ in modum derivatum. Et hoc eodem jure Deum uti censendum est, quando quando mala sæpe non levia a parentibus noxiis, et propter peccata sua punitis, in progeniem innoxiam derivari sinit; uti quando ex parentibus ob peccata sua leprâ, calculo, podagrâ punitis liberos leprosos, calculosos, podagricos aliisque malis obsessos nasci sinit. — Filiorum autem pœna idcirco non est, quia potuisset etiam Deus efficere vel permittere, absque ullo parentum peccato, ut filii leprosi, inopes, aut servi, nascerentur. Nec enim proprie malum est ita nasci, sed minus bonum, quod tamen respectu nostri mali physici rationem habet. Episcopius, Resp. ad Def. Cam, c. 7, There is no doubt but that, by the permission of divine Providence, dæmons or evil spirits delivered, by their suggestions to the idol priests and priestesses, various ways and sometimes by audible voices coming from the images or secret places where they were placed, the ORACULAR RESPONSES, whereby oftentimes the deepest secrets were revealed, and extraordinary events were foretold and came to pass, which were out of the reach of human understanding to know. - It was undoubtedly in opposition to the pagan oracular images, teraphim, temple-oracles, and divinations, that God instituted his oracle of urim and thummim. Jackson's Chronol. vol. iii. p. 238, &c. It is evident, from antient history, that the Theban Hercules, and others before him, exhibited GAMES in OLYMPIA, and that those of Hercules were most famous; that, when the Heraclidæ were driven out of Peloponnese, they were discontinued for about 120 years, and were again celebrated by Oxylus, King of Etolia, about the year before Christ 1102; but, from his death, they were discontinued till they were restored by Iphitus, prince of Elis, who was descended from Oxylus, in the year before Christ 981, the same year that Lycurgus gave his laws to the Lacedæmonians. — And it appears, from the most accurate historians and chronologers, that 27 olympiads passed between Iphitus and Choræbus; and, as the twenty-eighth olympiad, in which Choræbus was victor, was the first in which the names of the victors were recorded, it is from this ara, 776 years before Christ, that the Greeks made their computation, though many years after the beginning of the first æra, commencing from Iphitus. Jackson's Chronol. vol. iii. p. 336, 337, 347. Ferunt (ut autor est Suidas in August. Hist.) Angusti Cæsaris tempore cum ORACÚLA desiissent, Augustum ipsum ad Pythium accessisse Apollinem; oblatâque, ut moris erat, hecatombe, cum qui Romanorum deinceps imperium post se esset adepturus interrogaret, elinguem ac mutum stetisse Apollinem, geminatoque sacrificio, cum iterum obticuisset Pythius, tandem velut fatigatum aut ipsa veritate, quæ de cælo in has inferiores plagas despexerat, impulsum, ad hunc modum respondisse, Παΐς Εβραίος κίλεται με θεὸς μακαρίσσιν ἀνάσσων |