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"he had vowed; the consequence of which is immediately "added, and she knew no man. This was a great trouble "to Jephthah, because by this means his family was ex"tinct, and he had no issue to inherit his estate, or keep "his name in remembrance."

I shall hereto subjoin an observation which I borrow from Le Clerc, that though Jephthah might, by the Levitical Law, have redeemed her even from this servitude and single state; yet, probably, being a very religious man, he was scrupulous in the matter, having made his vow in so solemn a manner, and on so public an occasion; and he might think it mean, in a person of his distinction, to redeem so precious a treasure as an only daughter, at the low legal price of thirty shekels.

I shall only add farther, since the Objector seems to lay a great stress upon the maid's being yearly mourned for h, as dead, that the Hebrew words may be translated, as the margin reads, they went yearly to talk with the daughter of Jephthah and if that be the true rendering, the text itself will be a proof that she was not sacrificed, but was still alive.

This construction, I own, is doubtful: but then the other is more so: so that this at least we are certain of, that the Objector cannot prove his point.

I SAM. VI. 19.

AND HE SMOTE THE MEN OF BETHSHEMESH, BECAUSE THEY HAD LOOKED INTO THE ARK OF THE

LORD, EVEN HE SMOTE OF THE PEOPLE FIFTY

THOUSAND AND THREESCORE AND TEN MEN.

So stand the words in our translation. The Objector takes notice of them only in passing, and in this manner: "What holiness, either real or relative, would the ark "now have? Though it once had such legal holiness,

h Christianity as Old, &c. p. 96.

iSee Le Clerc in loc. Ross's Essay for a New Translation, p. 68, &c. 1 Christianity as Old, &c. p. 174.

* Judg. xi. 40.

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"that more than fifty thousand reapers were destroyed "for peeping into it." He says no more: but that he introduced this passage to banter and expose it, cannot be doubted; because in the same place he ridicules the notion of relative holiness, telling us, that "all the relative "holiness which concerns public worship, whether as to persons, places, or things, must be derived from the congregation;" instead of saying, what is truth, that it is derived from God, and stands in the relation which things consecrated bear to him. But I design not here to enter into the question about relative holinessm, which is foreign to my purpose. All I observe is, that when he was endeavouring to banter away all just sense of relative holiness, it was bantering Scripture too, to tell us that fifty thousand persons were destroyed on the account of the relative holiness of the ark. The men of Bethshemesh (several of them) were indeed destroyed for want of reverence towards God's holy ark: not fifty thousand, (as the translation says,) but SEVENTY MEN, OUT OF FIFTY THOUSAND MEN; which is a juster rendering of the Hebrew, and is well defended by Le Clerc in his comments upon the text. Bochart had before led the way" towards the correcting the common translations, rendering the words thus, SEVENTY MEN; viz. FIFTY OUT OF A THOUSAND MEN, a twentieth part, reckoning the whole but fourteen hundred. That was a much better rendering than the common translations; and his reasonings upon the text afforded great light to all that came after. Le Clerc's will suit as well with the letter of the Hebrew, and appears more natural, and less perplexed. These things the Objector might have known, and would have considered, had he been as much disposed to examine Scripture by reason, as he is to expose it by abusive re flections.

m See Mede, b. i. disc. 2. p. 14, &c. Bochart, Hieroz. tom. i. p. 370.

1 SAM. VIII. 7.

AND THE LORD SAID UNTO SAMUEL, HEARKEN

UNTO THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE IN ALL THAT THEY SAY UNTO THEE: FOR THEY HAVE NOT REJECTED THEE, BUT THEY HAVE REJECTED ME, THAT I SHOULD NOT REIGN OVER THEM.

The Objector produces this part of Scripture to countenance some crude speculations he has entertained in theology and politics; and which were proposed many years ago by the author of the Rights, and abundantly confuted by learned hands. But let us hear what this gentleman now says: "The Jews-being upon their coming out of Egypt a free people, had a right, by the "law of nature, to choose what government and governor they pleased."

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That is to say; if God should not interpose to appoint them any government or governor, they were at liberty to choose for themselves: by the permissive law of nature, (not preceptive,) they had such liberty, till God should otherwise restrain it. Admitted: and what then? He goes on. "God would not act so inconsistent a part as to deprive them of any of those rights he had given "them by the law of nature." No: as he had given them an hypothetical or conditional right to choose for themselves, (if himself should not interpose to choose for them,) so he could never act so "inconsistent a part," as to preclude them that right so limited and so conditioned. That is to say, he could not be so inconsistent as not to leave them at liberty while he left them at liberty, or not to leave them free so far as he left them free. Well; what follows?"Therefore he did not take upon him the civil ad"ministration of their affairs, till he had obtained their express consent." Ridiculous! He could never want their consent, because he never gave away, never could give away, his right of appointing them both government

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and governors: a right which he exercised afterwards in appointing them Saul first, and next David for their king, notwithstanding the pretended natural liberty. They were free by the law of nature while God left them free, and no longer; because their freedom stood only in his non-interposition. It was impossible for God to give his right away: for he has an unalienable right to dispose of all kingdoms; insomuch that when he leaves the people to choose for themselves, it is still God that appoints both the governor and government. Vox populi, in that case, is vox Dei; he appoints by them: and the choice of the people has no other force or weight with it, but as it is considered as the means by which God sets the government up, and in that alone does it stand. Therefore if God took their consent, (as he has been pleased to transact more covenants than one with men,) it was not because he had no right to demand it, or because they had any right to refuse it, but because he was pleased to condescend to human forms in his dealings with men, and to bind them the closer to him by federal as well as natural obligations. But this writer proceeds: "So that here he acted not as "governor of the universe, but by a power derived from "the people by virtue of the Horeb covenant." Worse than ever. This doctrine is neither true nor possible; but all over contradictory and absurd. When the people have a right to choose their governor, that right (as I before hinted) is God's, otherwise it is no right, nor has any effect: and when the people have so chosen their governor, he rules by Divine right, as the law of nature is God's law; and by that law he is then fixed in his throne, and has a right to rule. What therefore can our author mean by pretending, that God ruled by "a power derived from the people?" Suppose him to have condescended to accept of such an office conveyed by choice, and by covenant, in the manner of an earthly king; yet covenants convey a right only as God binds men by his law (natural) to observe them; and so a Divine right commences from the time the covenant commences. Well then, in the result,

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God reigned over the people by a right conveyed from himself to himself by the intervention of the people's choice. This is all that can in common sense be made of it. He appointed himself their Governor in that way, over and above what he was before: and his power could not be derived from any one but from himself, because “all "power is of God." All other rightful governors (whether by election, or succession, or extraordinary appointment) act and rule for God, are his vicegerents and deputies: and they exercise his power and authority. Certainly then, if he pleases to exercise the same in person, and to be, as it were, his own deputy, his power cannot be derived to him from any other source but from the same fountain of power from whence all power is.

But the Objector has a turn to serve by all this parade about the Horeb contract, as appears by what follows: "And the presumption is, that where there is no such "contract, God will not exercise such a power." No, not such special kingly power as he exercised among the Jews, during their theocracy: that may be granted. But the author means, that he will issue out no occasional precepts, no positive commands. And what ground is there for such a presumption? Did he not issue out positive commands to Adam, and to Noah, and to Abraham, and many others, long before the Jewish theocracy? His power and right of doing it is founded in his being Creator and Preserver of all things, and King of the whole earth and all the sons of Adam are naturally and necessarily born his subjects. If the king of Great Britain should condescend to be chosen governor in special over a petty corporation within his dominions, would that shorten or diminish his regal power, either over the members of that corporation, considered as his subjects, or over any other his subjects throughout the realm? No certainly. There is therefore no force at all in this author's argument, drawn from the Horeb contract: but the question about God's right to give positive laws stands as before, independent of it. God does not want our leave for the making of a law,

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