I defpife your Amos 5. whereby they could not live. Feaft-days, and I will not smell in your folemn 21,22,23, Affemblys; the ye offer me Burnt-Offerings, and your Meat-Offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the Peace-Offerings of your fat Beafts. Take thou away from me the noife of thy Songs, for I will not bear the Melody of thy Viols. A 5.31. 2. AS to the Priests and Prophets, they fay, The Priest and the Prophet have erred Isa, 27. 7. thro ftrong Drink, they are fallow'd up of Wine, they are out of the way thro strong Drink, they err in Vision, they stumble in Fudgment. The Priests faid not, Where is Jer. 2. 8. the Lord? And they that handle the Law, knew me not: the Paftors have tranfgrefs'd against me, and the Prophets propkefy'd by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit. The Prophets prophesy falfly, and the Priests bear rule by their means, and my People love to have it fo From the Prophet even unto the Priest every one dealeth falfly. Then the Lord faid unto me, The Prophets prophesy tyes my name; I fent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophefy unto you a falfe Vision and Divination, and a thing of nought, and the Deceit of their Heart. Both Prophet and Prieft are profane. I have feen Folly in the Prophets of Samaria, they prophefy'd in Baal, and caufed my People Ifrael to err.I have feen alfo in the Prophets of Jerufalem an bor in 6.13. 8, 10. 14. 4. 23. II 12. 14. rible thing: they commit Adultery, and walk in Lyes: they ftrengthen also the hands of evil doers, that none doth return from his Wickednefs: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the Inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.Jer.23.15. From the Prophets of Jerufalem Profaneness is gone forth thro all the Land. Thus faith 16. the Lord of Hofts, Hearken not unto the words of the Prophets that prophesy unto you; they make you vain: they speak a Vifion of their own Heart, and not out of the Mouth of the 20. Lord. I have not fent thefe Prophets, yet they ran; I bave not spoken to them, yet they 25, 26. prophefy'd.—They prophefy Lyes in my name, 30. yea they are Prophets of Deceit 27.16,17. the Prophets, faith the Lord. Ezek. 13. Just in the midst of her. 2. 22. 25. I am against Hearken not. to your Prophets, for they prophesy a Lye} unto you; but ferve the King of Babylon.The Lam.4.13. Enemy have entred the Gates of Jerufalem, for the Sins of her Prophets and Iniquity of ber Priests, that have fed the Blood of the Prophesy against the Prophets. There is a Confpiracy of ber Prophets like a roaring Lion ravening the Prey: they have devour'd Souls: they have taken the Treasure and precious things: they have made 28. many Widows. They have divined, faying, Thus faith the Lord, when the Lord hath not Hof. 6. 9. Spoken.-As Troops of Robbers wait for a Man, So the Company of Priests murder in the way by Micah 3. confent; for they commit Leudness.-The Priests teach for Hire, and the Prophets divine for II. Mony; Mony; yet will they lean upon the Lord, and fay, Is not the Lord among us? THESE are all fuch Inftances of FreeThinking, that had any Englishmen talk'd fo in our days, they would have had a place in Dr. SACHEVEREL'S Tryal and in the Reprefentation of the Lower Houfe of Convocation, as proofs of the Profaneness, Blafphemy, and Atheism of the Nation. (13.) Next to the Prophets I place JoSEPHUS, who is the moft antient uninfpir'd Evidence now remaining for the Authority of the Canon of the Old Teftament. He was the most learned and polite Author the Jews ever had, and has wrote a Hiftory of his Country, not much inferiour in Stile, Order, and Perfpicuity, to the beft of the Grecian or Roman Hiftorys; infomuch that in reading him I have often wish'd he had had a better Subject, than fuch an Illiterate, Barbarous, and Ridiculous * People. NOW Sermons, vol.1. p. 539. The Reverend Dr. South admirably well describes the Jews in part, when he says, They were all along a crofs, odd, untoward fort of People, and fuch as God feems to have efpous'd to himself upon the very fame account that Socrates did Xantippe, only for her extreme ill Conditions above all that he could poffibly find, or pick out of that Sex; and fo the fitteft both to exercise and declare his admirable Patience to the World. our Reverend and Learned Drs. Spencer and Burnet have defcrib'd them more at large. Says the first, But Nature NOW JOSEPHUS is allow'd by the Priests to be a great Latitudinarian, and addicted to the general Opinions of the Excellency of Nature form'd the Jews above all the other inhabitants of the Earth of a moroje, ill natur'd, and infamously obftinate Temper. -They were a barbarous and cruel People. Superftitious and deftitute of "almost all Literature. And he adds, to juftify God's That Superflition is a stubborn Monster, especially when by the Darkness of Ignorance it takes in fresh Barbarity and Obflinacy: And therefore God, in dealing with this illiterate and exceedingly fuperftitious Nation, was obliged to make allowance for their Infirmity, and draw them to himself by a fort of Craft, and not by Reafon. For no Brute is more crofs-grain'd, or requires greater Cunning to manage, than the fuperftitious Brute, especially if be be ignorant. The latter fays, That from the Laws of the Jews and the Mofaick Oeconomy, one may judg how grofs and flupid they were, and incapable of underfanding either the things of this World or the other. Their inft wife Legiflator would never have burden'd Philofophers, or Men capable of Divine things, Natura gentem Hebræorum præter careros orbis incolas ingenio morofo, difficili, & ad infamiam ufque pertinaci, finxit. Moribus afperis & efferatis.-Gens fuperftitiofa & omni penè literaturâ deftituta. Infiitution of the Jewish Laws; Contumax autem bellua fuperftitio, fi præfertim ab ignorantiæ tenebris novam ferociam & contumaciam hauferit. Quando itaque deo jam negotium effet cum populo tam barbaro & fuperftitioni tam impenfè dedito; penè neceffe fuit, ut aliquid eorum infirmitati daret, eofque dolo quodam (non argumentis) ad feipfum alliceret. Nullum animal fuperftitiofo, rudi præfertim, morofius eft, aut majori arte tractandum. Spencer de Legibus Hebræor. p. 628, 629. Ex Hebræorum Legibus & Oeconomiâ Mofaica judicare licet, craffam hebetemque fuiffe iftius populi indolem: neque rebus naturalibus contemplandis,aut divinis percipiendis, idoneam. Tot ritibus externis, tot ceremoniis infrugiferis, tot minutiis & obfervatiunculis, of Virtue and Goodness; that is, to be a Man of free Thought and a Lover of Virtue. A FEW Inftances of his Free-Thinking will not be unacceptable to the Reader. He fays, That CAIN, after a tedious Fourny thro feveral Countrys, took up at length at Nais, and fettled his abode but was so far from mending upon his Affliction, that he went rather from bad to worse; abandoning himself to all manner of Outrage, without any manner of regard to common Justice. He enrich'd himself by Rapine and Violence; and made choice of the most profligate of Monsters for his Companions, instructing them in the very Myftery of their own Profeffion. He corrupted things, with fo many external Rites, fo many unprofitable Ceremonys, so many Trifies and things of no confequence. He mix'd nothing spiritual, or abftracted from Senfe, not fo much as the Immortality of their own Souls, in his Inflitutions and Religion; and in the Rewards and Punishments promis'd or threaten'd for the Obfervation or Breach of their Law, there were none beyond this Life, nothing but temporal Good and Evil: and this not on the account of his own Ignorance, but on account of the Ignorance, or rather Stupidity, of this People. vatiunculis, viros philofo- * Dr. Willes's firft Difc. on Jofephus, p. 30. the |