laws to act on the Sabbath, and also that they were precluded from the use of customary food. And afterwards, under Nero, when the seeds of rebellion against the Roman authority were first beginning to appear, Agrippa endeavours to check the spirit of discontent, by warning the Jews how little prospect of success they could entertain against a powerful enemy, who possessed a decided advantage over them from this very peculiarity of their religious laws. "If," he argued, 66 you observe the duties of the Sabbath, and abstain from labour on that day, you become an easy prey to the enemy, as your ancestors in the siege under Pompey. If, on the contrary, you transgress your law to avoid the consequences which must result from its observance, then you defend a religion which you yourselves are violating, and have nothing to hope from the divine protection *." It is evident then, that the actual events of history confirm the suggestions of common sense, as to the natural effects to be * Jos. de Bello Jud. 1. ii. p. 1089. expected from the rigid attention to the Sabbath prescribed by Moses. No one therefore can reasonably suppose that any legislator acting upon his own authority, would have endangered his state by such a suicidal ordinance. This, however, is by no means the only enactment which must have inflicted a death-blow upon any polity of mere human institution. It was positively appointed*, that three times a year all the men of the country should appear together for the purpose of worship at the place that should be appropriated to the peculiar manifestation of the divine presence, viz. originally the tabernacle, and afterwards the temple at Jerusalem. What was this, but to provide as it were for leaving a frontier exposed, which was surrounded on all sides by inveterate enemies? Moses therefore accompanies the enactment by a divine declaration which was to quell this fear: "I will cast out the na"tions before thee, and enlarge thy bor"ders: neither shall any man desire thy "land, when thou shalt go up to appear be 'fore the Lord thy God thrice in the year†.” * Exod. chap. xxxiv. + Exod. xxiv. 12, The objections which in a human view oppose the appointment and attend the observance of such an ordinance, are so clear and evident, that when Jeroboam dreaded the effect of a meeting between his revolted tribes and their brethren, he had a ready plea at hand for abrogating the usage; and urging that it was too much for his people to go up to Jerusalem, he prescribed two places where they might more conveniently assemble. The appointment of the Sabbatical year is more extraordinary still: still less agreeable, if possible, to the idea of the human invention. It is conceived in these terms: "When ye come into the land which I "shall give you, then shall the land keep "a Sabbath unto the Lord.. Six years "thou shalt sow thy field, and six years "thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and ga"ther in the fruit thereof: but in the se"venth year shall be a Sabbath of rest unto "the land, a Sabbath for the Lord: thou "shalt neither prune thy vineyard, nor "sow thy field +." This is a point, which * 1 Kings, xii. + Levit. xxv. 2. never could have been insisted on by any lawgiver, having only in view the usual considerations of the wealth and security of his nation. political economy, and proceeds on a defiance of every object which a legislator has most at heart, by legalizing idleness, and an intermission of the regular avocations of the people. Any such intermission is calculated to inflict a twofold injury; not only by the immediate loss of time and its products; but by the consequent loss of habit and inclination. No man therefore could of his own accord have devised such an appointment; which was indeed only suited to a nation having a peculiar office, independent of the common business of life; and enjoying a peculiar protection, independent of the usual sources of prosperity. The disadvantages attending it could only have been compensated by the paramount necessity of preserving among the Israelites a constant sense of the power and faithfulness of God, and of the providence with which he secured to them the possession of their land, as long It strikes at the root of I 4 as they adhered to the conditions on which they held it*. That the nation, in point of real fact, could not maintain its ground against these rigid institutions without this extraordinary providence to correspond with them, we have here, as before, the testimony of actual history. The regulations of Moses, with the veneration which naturally adhered to the authority by which they were originally prescribed, were strictly followed on the re-establishment of the nation after the captivity at Babylon: though that signal accomplishment of the denunciations contained in the law from the beginning, might have satisfied the Hebrews that the terrors of punishment had not been vainly threatened, but that, as they had withdrawn their allegiance, God had withdrawn his protection. The natural consequence was soon perceived. Under Antiochus Eupator Jerusalem and the fortress of Bethsura were besieged in the " year of rest," and after a spirited but useless defence the former was taken, it having been * See Lowman on the Hebrew Ritual, p. 186, &e. |