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The authors of the Universal History, vol. x. p. 609, suppose that the soldiers appointed to watch our Saviour's sepulchre were Jews, not Romans, and observe that this is a material circumstance to secure to us the truth of his resurrection.

Tacita hîc est antithesis inter nothos sapientiæ filios, qui inanem titulum sine re obtendebant, et genuinos, qui Johanni et Jesu crediderunt, qui tamen minime omnium sapientes habebantur; cum Scribæ, &c. pro sapientibus se venditarent, qui hîc innuuntur minime sapientes fuisse. Lucas Brugensis.

And it is here observable, that xa is rendered, by Beza, Piscator, and others, with our version, but wisdom, &c. Matt. c. xi. 19, which marks the antithesis still stronger; which sense is evidently borrowed from the Hebrew 1, the opposite meaning of which is very frequent in the Old Testament; and, for want of observing this, our translators, by adhering to the copulative signification of this conjunction, have, in many passages, destroyed the most beautiful antithesis, and often perverted the direct meaning of the words, more particularly in the proverbs of Solomon.

The great reformation made in the notions of the eastern part of the world by ZoROASTER, whose doctrine and form of worship was the purest that the heathen knew, proceeded, very probably, from the notices of the true religion spread by means of the Jews: and many have apprehended, not without specious appearances of reason, that almost the whole knowledge of God, which the Greek philosophers had, was derived to them ultimately, if not immediately, from the revelations made to the Jews. Secker's Sermons, vol. v. p. 366.

THE END.

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