to be removed till the tenth generation; and to shew that the precept was on no account to be violated, or suffered to fall into disuse, it is immediately repeated, "A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the Lord *.”

Persons who had no lawful issue, were allowed to adopt whom they pleased, whether their own natural sons, or (by consent of their parents) the sons of other men. At Athens, foreigners being excluded from the inheritance of estates within their territory, upon their adoption, were made free of the city. The adopted person had his name enrolled in the tribe and ward of his new father; he was invested with all the privileges and rights of a legitimate son, and obliged to perform all the duties belong. ing to the latter. Being thus provided for in another family, he ceased to have any claim of inheritance or kindred in the family which he had left, unless he first renounced his adoption. This custom the Greeks borrowed from the eastern nations, or perhaps brought it with them from Asia, when they first crossed the Hellespont, and settled in Europe. Pharaoh's daughter adopted Moses for her son; and Mordecai received Esther into his house, and acknowledged her as his own daughter. To this ancient custom the Spirit of God sometimes alludes in the sacred Scriptures; and borrows the name by which it was distinguished, to intimate the high station and valuable privileges which the sinner attains in the day of conversion. The Father of mercies adopts his children, when he graciously admits strangers and foreigners, as all the children of Adam are become, into the state and relation of children, through Jesus Christ, in whom they believe, upon whose blood and righteousness they rely for pardon and acceptance; "for to as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God; even to them that believe on his name." "They are justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." They are regenerated by the power of the Holy Ghost,

* Deut. xxiii. 2.

and are brought, through his powerful and saving influences, into an affectionate and submissive temper of mind towards God as their reconciled Father. They have a right to all the privileges of sons; they are made partakers of a divine nature; nourished with the sincere milk of the word; kept by his almighty power; guarded by his ministering angels; clothed with the garments of salvation, and adorned with the robe of righteousness. He gives them an understanding to know the gospel, and makes them wise unto salvation; he visits their sins with stripes, and their iniquities with chastisements; he admits them to fellowship with himself, and with his son Jesus Christ; he makes all things work together for their good; he guides them with his counsel while they live, and afterwards receives them to glory.

But while some, by adoption, are raised from a state of meanness and penury to sudden affluence and honour, others by a severe reverse are depressed into long or perpetual bondage. The fate of war, a long series of domestic calamities, the fraud or violence of a too powerful neighbour, or other causes, have in almost all ages, involved no inconsiderable portion of the human race in the miseries inseparable from a state of servitude. Among the oriental nations, slavery seems to have existed from the remotest times. The holiest and the most benevolent of men did not consider it as a crime to detain their fellow creatures in this degrading condition. The servants of Abraham appear to have been all of this class; and the privilege of keeping slaves was extended to his posterity by the laws of Moses. The number of slaves, or servants as they are called in our translation, seems never to have been very great at any period of the Jewish history, because the moderate extent of their inheritances, and their own frugal and industrious habits, rendered a numerous establishment unnecessary; yet some Israelites, we are told by the inspired writer, had not less than twenty servants; and the number in other families was perhaps still greater. The slaves in the Hebrew commonwealth were either Jews by birth, or Gentiles

*

in descent, that became afterwards proselytes to the religion of their masters, or at least renounced idolatry, and conformed to the precepts of Noah. The laws which regulated the acquisition and treatment of slaves, are stated with sufficient clearness and precision in the Mosaic code, and have been explained at great length by Lewis and other writers on Jewish antiquities. In Greece, the unhappy beings that were reduced to a state of slavery, were wholly in the power and at the disposal of their masters, who were thought to have as good a title to them as to their lands and estates. In the land of promise, they were viewed in the same light; the very bodies of those slaves that were obtained by purchase from the surrounding nations, or by conquest, and of their children, they had a right to bequeath after their death; and had the same power and dominion over them as they had over their lands, their goods, or their cattle. A servant, says the Talmud, is like a farm in respect of buying, for he is bought with money, or with a writing, or by some iservice done, as a pledge or pawn. A servant bought by service, looses the buyer's shoe; carries such things after him as are necessary for the bath; he unclothes him, washes, anoints, rubs, dresses him, puts on his shoes, and lifts him up from the earth. But mean as these services are, the humble and self-denied precursor of Jesus did not think himself worthy to perform them to his Lord: "He that cometh after me is mightier than I; whose shoes I am not worthy to bear." These were the offices of the meanest slave, which that holy man thought himself unworthy to perform towards his Saviour; so high was his admiration of his character, and so lowly were the thoughts he entertained of himself.

It was a general custom in the east to brand their slaves in the forehead, as being the most exposed; sometimes in other parts of the body. The common way of stigmatizing was by burning the member with a red hot iron, marked with certain letters, till a fair impression was made, and then pouring ink into the furrows, that the inscription might be more conspicu

ous.

Slaves were often branded with marks, or letters, as a punishment of their offences; but the most common design of these marks was to distinguish them if they should desert their masters. For the same reason, it was common to brand their soldiers, but with this difference, that while slaves were marked in the hand, with the name, or some peculiar character belonging to their masters; soldiers were marked in the hand with the name or character of their general. In the same manner, it was the custom to stigmatize the worshippers and votaries of some false gods. Lucian affirms, that the worshippers of the Syrian goddess, were all branded with certain marks, some in the palms of their hands, and others in their necks. To this practice may be traced the custom, which became so prevalent among the Syrians, thus to stigmatize themselves; and Theodoret is of opinion, that the Jews were forbidden to brand their bodies with stigmata, because the idolaters, by that ceremony, used to consecrate themselves to their false. deities. The marks employed on these occasions were various. Sometimes they contained the name of the god; sometimes his particular ensign, as the thunderbolt of Jupiter, the trident of Neptune, the ivy of Bacchus: or they marked themselves with some mystical number, which described the name of the god. Thus the sun, who was denoted by the number DC VIII. is said to have been represented by these two numeral letters XH. These three ways of stigmatizing, are all expressed by the apostle John in the book of Revelation. "And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free. and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand or in their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name *." The followers of the beast received a mark in their right hand, because they ranged themselves under his banners, ready to support his interests, and extend his dominions with fire and sword: they bore the name of their general, the bishop of Rome, Aarewos, and the number of his name, which is 666. But they Rev. xiii. 16. Potter's Gr. Antiq. vol. 1. p. 65, 66,

also received the mark of slaves on their foreheads, to denote that they were his absolute property, whom he arrogated a right to dispose of according to his pleasure; who could neither buy nor sell, live with comfort, nor die in peace, without his permission. But they were not only soldiers and slaves; they were also devotees, that regarded and acknowledged him as a god, and even exalted him above all that is called God and is worshipped; in token of which, they received a mark in the palm of their hand, or in their foreheads. The practice of marking the soldier and the devotee, although of great antiquity, may be traced to one origin, to a custom still more ancient, of marking a slave with some peculiar stigma, to prevent him from deserting his master's service, or rendering his discovery and restoration certain and easy.

The price of a slave, according to Maimonides, was thirty pieces of silver, whether male or female, without any regard to sex, or shape, or size, or intrinsic value. And this, it will be recollected, was the price at which the traitor sold the Redeemer of our souls; it was a part of the deep humiliation to which he submitted, to be valued by his betrayers and murderers only at the price of a Gentile slave, the meanest and the most despised of the human race. Slaves in the east, are often sold for much less in time of war. When the Tartars invaded Poland, they sold the children of that unhappy kingdom for a crown. In Mingrelia, they sell them for provisions and wine. It was a part of the misery which the people of Israel had to suffer for their iniquities, to see their children also sold for a trifle: "They have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink *."

The people of Israel, like all the nations of antiquity, had the power of life and death over their slaves; for slavery proceeded from the right of conquest, when the victors, instead of putting their enemies to death, chose rather to give them their lives, that they might have the benefit of their services. Hence

* Joel iii. 3.