himself was to come according to the Prophecy of Jacob That of Ephraim held the second rank by reason of Joseph Moreover in each tribe the eldest Branches and the heads of each Family were considered and all this made Saul say being surprized at the honours he received from Samuel Am not I a Benjamite of the smallest of the Tribes of Israel and my Family the least of all the Family of the tribe of Benjamin Age did likewise make a great Distinction and the name of Old men in Scripture ordinarily signifies Dignity And indeed nothing but Age and experiences could distinguish men who were equally Noble and almost equally Rich of the same Profession and brought up after the same Manner CAP. II. Their Occupations Agriculture FOr among the Israelites there were no distinct Professions From the head of the tribe of Judah to the youngest of that of Benjamin they all were Husbandmen and Shepherds going themselves to plow and looking after their own flocks The old man of Gibeah who lodged the Levite whose Wife was violated was returning in the Evening from his Labour out of the Field when he invited him to come to his house Gideon was himself thrashing his corn when an Angel told him that he should deliver the People Ruth found favour in the sight of Boaz by gleaning after his Reapers When Saul received news of the danger the City of Jabish Gilead was in he was coming after the herd out of the field notwithstanding his being a King 'T is well known David was keeping sheep when Samuel sent to seek him out for the anointing of him King And he returned to his flock after his having been call'd to play upon his Harp before Saul After he was King his Sons made a great Feast when they sheared their sheep Elisha was called to prophecy as he was driving one of his Fathers twelve Ploughs The Scripture being crowded with such examples Without doubt 't is this which most of all palls those who are not acquainted with Antiquity and only esteem our Manners When we talk to 'em of Ploughmen and Shepherds they figure to themselves such Peasants and Country Fellows as ours leading a gloomy and painful life in Poverty and contempt without Valour wit or education They do not consider that what renders our Peasants so miserable is their being as the Servants of all other men not only labouring for their own Subsistance but for the furnishing of things necessary to all those whom are look'd upon to be above them in the World For the Country-man it is who nourisheth the Citizen the Officer of Justice the Gentleman the Ecclesiastick and what means soever are made use of to convert money into commodities or commodities into money they must all still have relation to the Fruits of the Earth and the living Creatures which it nourishes Yet when we compare together all those different degrees of conditions we place in the lowest Form those who till the ground and look to Cattle and have more Esteem for gross and useless Citizens without vigor of body without industry without any merit because having more money they lead a more easy and more pleasurable life But if we fancy a Country where the difference of Conditions was not so great and where doing nothing was not to live Nobly but to preserve carefully ones Liberty that is to be subject only to the Laws and the Publick Power standing on ones own Bottom without dependance on any body and contenting ones self with a little rather than doing any low paltry base thing to grow rich a Country where they despised Idleness Effeminacy and the Ignorance of things necessary for Life and where they had a less value for Pleasure than for Health and Strength of Body In such a Country it would be much more Decent and Gentile to Plough or keep a Flock let the words sound never so odly than to play and sport away a mans whole life Now we need not have recourse to the Common wealth of Plato to find men of this quality and condition since thus it was that the greatest part of the world lived during near Four thousand years To begin with what we are best acquainted such were the Maxims of the Greeks and Romans In Homer we see every where Kings and Princes living upon the Fruits of their Lands and their Flocks and labouring with their own hands Hesiod has made a Poem on purpose to recommend the Country-life and toil as the only honest means of subsisting and growing rich And he blames his Brother to whom he addresses it for living at the expence of others by pleading causes and soliciting Affairs That employment he brands with the name of Laziness which among us is the calling of so many People And we may see by the Oeconomicks of Xenophon that the Grecians had diminished nothing of that Esteem for Agriculture even in the time of their greatest Politeness We ought not therefore to attribute the Assiduities of the Ancient Romans in the improvement of their lands to their Barbarity and grosness in learning 'T is rather a sign of their good sense As all men are born with arms and bodies proper for Labor they believed that all were obliged to make use of them and that they could not employ 'em better than in drawing from the Earth a certain subsistance and so growing Innocently rich Nevertheless it was not Avarice which engaged them in that way of living seeing they as 't is well known despised Gold and the Presents of Forreigners Neither did this hinder them from being a brave and a Warlike People in regard it was at the same time that they subdued all Italy and acquired those immense Forces which they employed afterward in the conquest of the World On the contrary a painful and frugal Country-life was the Principal cause of their great Strength making their Bodies robust hard'ned to Labour and accustoming them to svere Discipline Whoso knows the life of Cato the Censor cannot suspect him guilty of baseness of heart or of Lowness of Spirit Yet that great man who had passed through all the Offices of the Republick when it was in it's greatest Force who had govern'd Provinces and commanded Armies a great Oratour a great Lawyer and great Politician This great man did not disdain to write a Treatise concerning all the ways that are necessary for the emproving of Lands and Vineyards and how Stables and Houses were to be built for the several sorts of Cattle and how a Press was to be made for Wine or Oyl and all these to the most minute Circumstances Insomuch as we may see that he was perfectly acquainted with them and that he wrote for Use and not for Ostentation Let us then confess seriously that the contempt we have for the Country toyl and labour is not founded upon any solid reason seeing that Labour perfectly well suits with courage with all the Virtues of
nourishment that Country produced did sufficiently furnish 'em with wool and eatables of Flesh Yet otherwise the Tributary Strangers brought them many Cattle Jehoshaphat beside the Tribute of Moneys which he exacted from the Philistins received from the Arabians seven thousand five hundred Rams and as many Goats and there are other examples of the like Tributes Add to this that the Israelites lived plainly and that all the good land they had was carefully cultivated since there were few woods they had neither Parks for hunting nor avenues nor bowling-greens and grass-plats We see by the Canticles of Solomon their Gardens were full of Fruit-trees and aromatick plants And they must needs be in less pain to provide Lodging than nourishment for as much as not only half an Acre of Land but a Quarter is more than sufficient to lodge at large not only a man but a whole Family CAP. VII The Estates of the Israelites THus each Israelite had his field to cultivate being the same that had been allotted to his Ancestors in the time of Josuah They could neither change Place nor ruine themselves nor grow too rich The Law of the Jubile had provided against such like encounters revoking every fifty years all such alienations and annulling all obligations By these means Disquiet and Ambition were retrenched Every individual person applyed himself with affection to the improvement of his Inheritance knowing it would never go out of his Family This Application was likewise a Religious Duty founded upon the Law of God And from hence came the generous Resistance of Naboth when King Ahab would have perswaded him to have sold the Inheritance of his Fathers Moreover the Law says that they were but the Vsufructuaries of their Lands God being the true Proprietor For this reason they were charged with no other payment than the tenths and first fruits Thus all the Israelites were almost equal in their estates as well as in Nobility And if the multiplying of a Family obliged 'em to share the Lands into more portions the Cattle might supply the want of Lands Thus Cattle and other moveables were that which mainly occasioned the inequality of estates That was all the substance of the Levites seeing they had no Lands and had preserved the Pastoral life so much esteemed of by the Patriarchs They bred the same kinds of animals and ever more Females than Males Other wise it would have redounded to their damage the Law prohibiting to cut them They had no horses neither are they of great use in mountainous places Their Kings were supplyed from Egypt when they had occasion for ' em Asses were most commonly used as they are still through all the Levant But they are there much finer and stronger than in our cold Countries To give a great Idea of Jair one of the Judges who ruled the People the Scripture says that he had thirty Sons mounted on thirty asses and they were Heads of thirty Cities 'T is said of Abdon another of the Judges that he had forty Sons and thirty Grand-sons mounted upon sixty and ten Asses It does not appear that they had any great number of Slaves Nor indeed had they any great occasion for them being themselves so laborious and so numerous in so small a Country They chose rather to set their Children to work whom they were obliged to maintain and they were the better served by them The Romans at length found themselves highly incommoded by that infinite multitude of Slaves of all Nations whom Luxury and effeminacy had brought amongst them And it was one of the pirncipal causes of that Empires ruine Ready money could not be very common among the Israelites it was of no great use in a Country where immoveable Goods could not be Alienated nor debts contracted but only for a time commonly very short and never longer than fifty years and where there was little Traffick Usury was forbidden amongst the Israelites but permitted with Strangers But according to the Law 't was not easy to have commerce with those without and there tarryed none in the Country but who were Proselytes that is to say Circumcised and incorporated with the People of God Thus their estates as I have said consisted chieâ—ly in Lands and in Cattle CAP. VIII Of the Arts and Trades of the Israelites I Know no people who addicted themselves more entirely to Agriculture than the Israelites The Egyptians and Syrians joyned Manufacture thereunto as also Navigation and commerce Especially the Phenicians who finding themselves too closely coopt up on the coasts since that the Israelites had drove them from the Inlands were forc'd to live by their industry and to be as the carryers and Factors of all other nations The Greeks imitated them and particularly excelled in Arts and Sciences On the contrary the Romans had these in no great value but addicted themselves very much to commerce As for the Israelites their Land was sufficient to nourish them and the sea-coasts were for the most part possessed by the Philistins and Canaanites who are the Phenicians There was only the Tribe of Zebulon whose share being upon the Sea invited 'em to traffick which methinks is shown in the blessings of Jacob and Moses Neither do I see that they applyed themselves to Manufacture Not but that those Arts were invented the greatest part of 'em being more ancient than the Deluge and it appearing also that the Israelites did not want excellent work men even in the time of Moses Besaleel and Oholiab who made the Tabernacle and all that was necessary for the service of God are an Illustrious example hereof 'T is astonishing how many very different and most difficult arts they understood They knew how to cast and work up mettals they knew how to cut and engrave precious Stones They were Joyners Embroyderers Tapestry-makers and Perfumers Among those Arts two there are which I principally admire The cutting of Stones and the casting of Figures such as were the CheCherubins of the Ark and the Golden Calf which was made much about the same time Those who have but the least knowledge in Arts know how much Artifice and how many Machines are required for works of that nature If from that time they were found out they had already very much refined them and such arts too as only serve for ornament and if they had some secret to do things more easily and with less clutter it was undoubtedly a great perfection Let this be said by the by for to show that Antiquity at so monstrous a distance was not gross and ignorant as some fondly imagine And truly the World was now above two thousand five hundred years old in the time of Moses But whether those two famous Workmen had been instructed by the Egyptians or their knowledge was miraculous and inspired by God as the Scripture seems to intimate it does not appear that they had Successours nor that even in the
all Antiquity has judg'd incompatible therewith and against which our Instructors never cease to declaim True we abhor Idolatry but we do not see it any where without it be among the Papists it having been entirely decryed for above a thousand years We must not therefore believe the Israelites were more stupid than other People because the repeated favours which they received from God did not cure them of Idolatry But we must acknowledge that the wound of Original sin was very deep since such holy Instructions and such great wonders were not sufficient to elevate men above sensible things And Besides we see that other People the most illuminated in other things as the Greeks and Egyptians were also without Comparison more blinded herein CAP. XXII State Politick Liberty Domstick Power AFter the Religion we must say a word or two of the Politick State of the Israelites They were perfectly a free People and chiefly before they had Kings In their Country were neither Homages nor Censives nor constraints for Hunting or Fishing nor any of those different sorts of Subjection which among us are so usual that great men themselves are not exempt from them since we see Soveraigns who are Vassals and even Officers of other Soveraigns as in Germany and Italy Thus they enjoy'd that Liberty so much cherish'd by the Greeks and Romans and it was their own fault that they did not always preserve and enjoy it It was the intention of God as appears by the reproaches Samuel made them on his behalf when they demanded a King Gideon was well inform'd of this for that when they would have made him King and setled the Kingdom on his Posterity he generously return'd Answer I will not rule over you neither shall my son rule over you the Lord shall rule over you So that their State was neither Monarchical nor Aristocratical nor Demccratical but as Josephus calls it a Theocracy that is to say God himself govern'd them immediately by the Law he had given them So long as they were faithful in observing it they lived in safety and in Liberty As soon as they broke it to follow their particular Inclinations they fell into Anarchy and Confusion This is what the Scripture shows when it sets it down for the Cause of the greatest crimes In those days there was no King in Israel but every man did that which was right in his own eyes This Anarchy divided and weakned them and gave them up a Prey to their Enemies until that returning to themselves they had recourse to God who sent 'em deliverers Thus it was that they lived under the Judges falling from time to time into Idolatry and Disobedience to the Law of God and by those means into confusion and slavery still recovering themselves from time to time In short they chose rather to have a Master than to remain in Liberty by faithfully keeping the Law of God Their Liberty being reduced to it's just bounds consisted in being able to do all that the Law of God did not prohibit and in not being obliged to do but what it commanded without being subject to the Will of any Particular man But the Domestical Power of the Fathers of Families was very great over their Slaves and their Children Some Hebrews were slaves to their Brethren and the Law set down two causes which might bring 'em into that condition Poverty which constrained them to sell themselves or the Trespass of a Thief who had not wherewith to make Restitution It seems this latter cause does extend to other Debts by the example of that Widow whose Oyl Elisha Multiplyed to the end she might have wherewith to pay her Creditors and keep her Children from bondage nevertheless those Hebrew slaves might become free after six years to wit in the Sabbatical year And if they would not make use of that Priviledge they had that of the Jubile to be free after fifty years and to preserve their Childrens freedom It was recommended to treat them gently and rather to make use of forreign slaves The Israelites might kill their slaves with impunity and that right was then common to all Nations For Slavery proceeded from the right of War when instead of killing Enemies they chose rather to spare their lives that they might have their Service So they supposed that the Conquerour had always a right of taking away their lives if they rendred themselves unworthy of them that he acquired the same right over their Children in regard they could not have been born if he had not preserved the Father and that he transmitted that right when he alienated his Slave This is the foundation of the Absolute Power of Masters and it was seldom that they misused it For their own Interest obliged them to preserve their Slaves who made part of their estate This is the reason of that Law of God for not punnishing him who had struck his Slave after such a manner that he dyed thereof some days after He is his money said the Law meaning his own Loss did sufficiently punish him But if he kills him down-right upon the Spot it declares him culpable Wherein it is more Humane than the Laws of other People who made not that distinction The Romans had during above five hundred years the Right of putting their Slaves to Death and their Debtors into Irons in default of Payment and of selling their own Children even thrice before they went out of their Power and all this by virtue of those wise Laws of the Twelve Tables which they brought from Greece at the same time when the Jews reestablished themselves at their Return from the Captivity that is to say about a thousand years after Moses As to the Paternal Power of the Hebrews the Law permitted 'em to sell their Daughters But that sail was a kind of Marriage and if a Son was disobedient and debaucht the Elders of the City condemned him to dy and he was accordingly stoned to death That very Law was practised at Athens but at Rome the Fathers had a long time the Power of life and Death over their Children as well as over their Slaves This so rigorous right was grounded upon the Children's holding their Lives from their Parents and they supposed there would be none found so unnatural as to cause their Children to perish if they did not commit the most horrible Crimes However that fear was very useful to keep Children in an intire submission The Romans Law was really excessive in giving to the Fathers of Families that power of life and Death by their private Authority without participation of the Magistrate or of the Publick But fallen we are to the opposite extremity suffering that Paternal Power to sink to nothing How young soever a Son be as soon as he is Married or has means of subsistance without his Father presently he pretends he owes him nothing more than a little
Respect From thence comes the infinite Multiplication of Little Families and of People who live alone or in Places where all are equally Masters Those young independent People if they be poor become Vagabonds and unaccomptable persons capable of all manner of Crimes if they be rich they plunge themselves into riotous vices and are ruin'd Besides the corruption of Manners this Independence may also cause great Mischiefs in the State It being much more difficult to govern such a multitude of Seperate and unruly men than a small number of Heads of Families each of whom did answer for a great Number of men and was usually an old man instructed in the Laws CAP. XXIII The Authority of the Old men NOt only the Fathers but all the old men had a great Authority among the Israelites and among all the People of Antiquity In every Country of the World they chose at first Judges for private Affairs and Councellours for the Publick from among the most aged men Hence came the names of Senate and Fathers at Rome and that great Respect for Elders which they had taken from the Lacedemonians Nothing is more conformable to nature Youth is only proper for Motion and Action Old age knows how to instruct counsel and command It rarely happens that in a Young man Study or force of Mind supplies Experience and an old man provided he has good natural Sense is knowing only by his Experience All Histories do bear that the best governed States have been those where old men have had the Principal Authority and that the Reigns of Princes too young have been the most unfortunate It is what the Wiseman say's Wo unto thee O Land when thy King is a Child and it is this Misfortune which God threatens the Jews withal when he lets 'em know by Isaiah that he will give them Children to be their Princes And indeed Youth has neither patience nor foresight 'T is an enemy to Rule and seeks only Pleasure and Change As soon as the Israelites began to form themselves into a People they were governed by Old men When Moses came into Egypt to promise them Liberty on God's behalf he assembled the Elders and in their presence did Miracles which were the proofs of his Mission All the Elders of Israel came to the Feast which he made for Jethro his Father in Law When God was pleased to appoint him a Council for the easing him in the management of that great People Choose out said he to him Seaventy men whom thou knowest to be the Elders of the People and Officers over them So that already they were in Authority before the Law was given or the State had received it's form In all the sequel of Scripture every time that mention is made of Assemblies and of Publick affairs the Elders are placed in the first rank and sometimes they only are named From whence the expression comes in the Psalm which exhorts to Praise God in the congregation of the People and in the Seats of the Elders that is in the Publick Council These two parts composed all the ancient Republicks The Assembly which the Greeks Styl'd Ecclesia and the Latins Conscio and the Senate The name of Elders did afterwards pass into Titles of dignity From the Greek word comes the name of Priest and from the Latin one by Contraction the name of Sir We may judge of the Age whereat the Hebrews thought fit to reckon a man in the number of those that were Aged by that passage in Scripture where those are termed Young men whose Councils Rehoboam followed For it is said they were brought up with him and we may conclude thence that they were about his age and he was then Fourty years old CAP. XXIV Administration of Justice JUstice was administred by two sorts of Officers Shophetim and Shoterim established in each City by the order which Moses had given at God's command 'T is certain the word Shophetim signifies Judges But Shoterim is variously translated in the Vulgar yet the Tradition of the Jews explains it of Ministers of Justice Door-keepers Serjeants Attendants to Courts and the like Those Offices were given to Levites of whom 6000 were that way employed in the time of David These Judges were the same whom Jehoshaphat reestablished in each City and to whom he gave such excellent Instructions The Scripture adds that at Jerusalem he established a company of Levites Priests and Heads of Families for the judging great Causes It is that Council of Seventy Elders erected in the days of Moses wherein the high-Priest presided and to which all questions were brought that were too difficult to be decided by the Judges of Lesser Cities The Tradition of the Jews is that these Judges of particular Cities were to the number of twenty three that they were all to be assembled in Capital Causes and that three were sufficient for Matters Pecuniary and for other Affairs of less Consequence The chief Judge was the King according to those words of the People to Samuel Give Give us a King to Judge us The place where those Judges kept their Court was the Gate of the City For as the Israelites were all Husbandmen who went out in the Morning to go to their Work the City-gate was the place where they most commonly met And we ought not to wonder that they Workt in the Fields and dwelt in Cities They were not such Cities as the Metropolises of our Countries that can hardly subsist upon what twenty or thirty Miles round about do furnish them withal They were Habitations for as many Labourers as were necessary to cultivate the Lands that lay nearest them from whence it came that the Country being well peopled those towns were very numerous The Tribe of Judah alone counted 115 for it's share when it entred into possession besides what was afterwards built and each one had Villages in it's dependence So that they must needs have been small and near one another like great Villages walled and well built having also what ever is to be had in the Country since in Jerusalem it self there were Barnes where Corn was thrashed as that of Ornan the Jebusite which David bought for the building of the Temple In like manner among the Greeks and Romans the Rendevous for all affairs was the Market-place by reason they were all Merchants In the time of the Ancient Francks the Vassals of each Lord assembled in the Court of his Castle and hence are derived the Courts of Princes In the Levant as the Princes live more Retired Affairs are dispatch'd at the Gate of their Seraglio And that Custome of making a Court at the Palace-gate was in use in the days of the Ancient Kings of Persia as we may see more than once in the Book of Esther The City-gate was the Place where all Publick and Private Business was canvass'd in the
of Meats Add to this that the horrour of Idolatry made the Jews reject Sculpture and Painting and kept them from listning to the Fable of the Poets and reading of their Writings What an indignation would it raise in a Grammarion or a Rapsodist to see a Jew trample upon Homer and term him a false Prophet and an Impostourâ— shew the Lewd and absurd things in the Genealogies of the Gods in their Metamorphoses their Amours How could it be endur'd that he should detest the Infamies of the Stage and the Abominations in the Ceremonies of Bacchus and Venus In short that he should maintain that there was no God but his who was the true God and that they were the only People upon Earth who knew the truth as to Religion and the conduct of Manners The Jews were so much the less hearkned to in that they were not skill'd in making excellent Harangues or in forming and Figuring of Arguments and that for a proof of those great truths they only alledged matters of Fact i.e. the mighty Miracles that God had done in the sight of their Forefathers Now the commonalty of the Greeks did not distinguish those Miracles from the Prodigies they also related in their Fables And the Philosophers believed them impossible because they did not argue but from the Rules and methods of nature which they held necessary of an absolute Necessity The Greeks being thus disposed very willingly open'd their Ears to the Calumnies of the Phenicians Egyptians and other Enemies of the Jews And from hence without question came those silly and impertinent Fables which Tacitus so seriously tells us when he would unfold the Origine of the Jews and act the learned Historian and which we likewise see in Justin who had been also doused in the same Spring But beside those lyes which might easily be slighted the Greeks went on to Violence and Persecution Thus Ptolomee Philopater after having lost the battle of Raphia discharged his choler against them and his Son Epiphanes irritated at his having been hindred from entring into the Sanctuary would needs expose them to Elephants Under Seleucus Philopater King of Syria Heliodorus came to pillage the sacred Treasures and was only lett from doing so by a Miracle In a word under Antiochus his Successours began the greatest Persecution they ever suffered which may at least be equall'd with any the Christians afterwards underwent And indeed among the Jews were the first Martyrs that we know of for the cause of God and his holy Law to Wit the three Companions of Daniel who were put into the Furnace and himself when exposed to the Lions had the merit of Martyrdome but God perform'd Miracles in their Preservation Eleazar the Seven Brethren and others whom the History of the Maccabees does mention gave up their Lives for God and for the Law of their Forefathers and 't is the first example that I meet withal in all Story of that kind of Vertue We can see no infidels before that time nor even Philosophers who chose rather to suffer Death by the most cruel Punishments than to violate their Religion and the Laws of their Country True there were Jews who gave way to the Persecution but such as had so intirely renounc'd their Religion and Laws as to make use of Artifices to hide their Circumcision so that they were no longer counted Jews And those who continued faithful were so Zealous for their Law and Liberty that at last they took up Arms to defend it against the Kings of Syria who openly violated all the Priviledges which the Persian Kings had granted them and which had been allowed 'em by Alexander and the other Macedonian Kings CAP. XXX The Reign of the Asmonians THus are we come to the time of the Maccabees when the Jewish nation did recover it self and appear with a new Lustre They were no longer those poor People who only thought of Living in peace under the conduct of their High-Priest and Elders very happy in having the Liberty to cultivate their Lands and serve the God of Heaven after their own Mode A State it was wholly Independent and supported it self by good Troops Strong Places and Allyances not only with the Neighbouring Princes but with far distant States and with Rome it self The Egyptian and Syriaâ— Kings who had treated 'em so illâ—were afterwards constrained to Court their Friendship The Jews made great Conquests John Hyrcan took Sichem and Gerizem and ruin'd the Temple of the Samaritans So absolute was he in all the Land of Israel He extended his Conquests into Syria where he took many Cities after the Death of Antiochus Sidetes and into Idumea which he so entirely subdued as to oblige the Idumeans to Circumcise themselves and to observe the Mosaical Law as being incorporated with the Nation of the Jews His Son Aristobulus added the marks of Royalty to the real Power taking the Diadem and the title of Kings and Alexander Jaddaeus made likewise sundry Conquests But this glory of the Jews was of a short continuance Whereas the weakning of the Kingdoms of Syria and Egypt had made very much for their Elevation the total ruine of those two Kingdomes drew theirs along with it through the immense increase of the Romans power And their Domestick divisions also much contribuâ—â—d thereto by the perpetual Misunderstanding of the two Sons of Aâ—â—xander Jannaeus Hyrcanus and Aristobulus In short they enjoy'd their Liberty but eighty years since Simon had been declared Head of the Nation after having cast off the Yoak of the Grecians untill that Pompey's being called in by Hircanus took Jerusalem entred into the Temple and made the Jews tributary They were afterwards above twenty years in a miserable condition divided by the Parties of the two Brothers and pillaged by the Romans who carryed away above 700 Millions at several times After the defeat of Brutus and Cassius the Parthians taking advantage of the weakness of Mark Anthony who governed the East rendred ' emselves Masters of Syria and Palestine and carryed way Hyrcanus In all that time of the Roman Civil Wars and the Odds which the Parthians got of them Palestine was exposed to great Desolations by the Passages of so many Armies of divers Nations anâ— by the Incursions of the Neighbouring People particularly of thâ— Arabians 'T is true it recruited it self little under Herod He brought thither Peace and Abundance He was Powerful Rich and Magnificent But we cannot say the Jews were a free People in his time He was not free himself but wholly depended on the Roman Emperours He was a Stranger Originally an Idumean He had no Religion and only kept up an outside of it as an Instrument of his Policy He utterly pull'd down the Succession of High-Priests making one Hananeel to come from Babylon a contemptible Wretch tho of the Sacerdotal Race Since which time there were no High-Priests but whom and as long as the